Play Forty Thieves Solitaire Online
Forty Thieves uses 2 complete decks, but it gives you very little room to hide a mistake. The opening places 40 face-up cards in 10 columns and keeps the other 64 in a stock. Every tableau move carries just one card. Cards build downward only in the same suit, while 8 foundations wait for the 2 copies of each suit.
The whole tableau is visible from the start. That sounds generous until a useful card sits under 3 cards that have nowhere to go. Most decisions come down to which card you can release, where it can wait and whether the next stock card helps before the waste pile covers it.
Forty Thieves Starts with 10 Open Columns
Each of the 10 tableau columns begins with 4 face-up cards. The stock and waste sit above the columns, beside 8 foundation spaces. You get neither holding cells nor face-down cards waiting to be turned over, so the opening board shows exactly where 40 cards sit, including both copies when a card appears twice on the table.
Visibility still leaves you short of places to park a blocker. In FreeCell, a spare cell can hold one card while a sequence is rearranged. Forty Thieves offers no such shelf. A card can move to a suitable tableau card, an empty column or its foundation. If none of those destinations is available, it stays where it is.
Build Tableau Cards Down in Suit
A tableau card needs a card exactly one rank higher in the same suit. The 7 of clubs can sit on the 8 of clubs, but not on the 8 of spades. Only a column's lowest card can move, and it travels alone. An empty column accepts any exposed card.
Build 8 Foundations from Ace to King
Each foundation starts with an Ace and climbs within its suit until it reaches a King. Since the pack contains 2 copies of every card, each suit needs 2 separate foundation piles. Moving all 104 cards there completes the deal.
Why Every Tableau Move Carries One Card
Same-suit building may look familiar to anyone who has played Baker's Game, but Forty Thieves does not let a completed packet travel together. If a column ends with the 9, 8 and 7 of hearts, the 7 must move before the 8 can be reached, and the 8 must move before the 9. Rebuilding the same sequence elsewhere requires temporary landing places for the cards moved out of the way.
This rule gives short columns real value. A column with one exposed card can be cleared in a single move, creating a temporary space for any rank. A 4-card column may take much longer to open even when every card is visible. The board often turns on whether one empty column can be kept free long enough to release another.
A Single Pass Through the Stock
The stock deals one card at a time. Its top card becomes the waste card and remains playable until the next draw covers it. There is no redeal after the 64 stock cards have been used. A card passed in the waste will not return on another trip through the pack.
You get only one pass, so you see each stock card once and in a fixed order. Drawing can reveal the card you need, but it also covers the current waste card. When the tableau has no useful move, the stock may be the only way forward. When the waste card already has a legal home, play it before you draw again.
Duplicate Cards Can Solve Different Problems
Both decks contain an identical Ace through King in every suit, and the 2 copies can turn up anywhere. A 6 of diamonds buried in the tableau may be blocked for a long time while its twin arrives from the stock. Either copy can continue the same foundation, provided the rank below it is already there.
The duplicate cards make the board less rigid than it first appears. A needed rank may have another copy elsewhere, yet the 8 foundations still need both complete suit sets before the game is over. Sending one copy up solves the problem in front of you, but the other copy still has to be found and placed later.
Empty Columns Create Working Space
Any exposed card may enter an empty tableau column. That freedom is unusually important in a game that moves cards singly. The new column can hold a blocker, begin a same-suit descent or expose a card that was trapped beneath it. Filling the space at once may be useful, but it also gives up the only destination that accepts a card without checking its suit or rank.
Spider 4 Suits also deals 2 packs into 10 columns, though its empty spaces support packet building and its stock deals a full row. Forty Thieves uses the same broad footprint for a much tighter single-card puzzle. The boards look related from a distance and behave very differently once a column opens. Double Klondike is the closer choice when you want 2 decks but prefer alternating-color runs and King-only empty columns.
Forty Thieves Questions
Can I move a run of cards in Forty Thieves?
No. Every tableau move carries a single card, even when the cards below it are already in suit order.
Is there a redeal?
No. You go through the 64-card stock once, and a card left in the waste stays buried under the cards drawn after it.
Can every Forty Thieves deal be won?
No. Forty Thieves is known as one of the harder 2-deck games, and many shuffles cannot be won. Every deal here is a fresh shuffle, so some of them have no solution at all. Hints and undo are there while you learn. Leaderboards rank only Winnable deals, so a Forty Thieves win counts in your own stats.
Reading a Forty Thieves Midgame
A Forty Thieves table usually becomes easier to read as foundations rise and columns shorten. The stock count, the current waste card, the top rank of each foundation and the exposed card in every column all stay in view. Long columns show where cards are hard to reach, and short columns show where an empty column may appear soon. The full Forty Thieves rules guide uses a real deal to show how those visible facts change from the opening to the last stock cards.
Forty Thieves belongs to the family of 2-deck building games. The types of Solitaire page compares those families and points to a gentler starting place when 10 columns and a 64-card stock feel like too much for a first deal.