Play Forty Thieves Solitaire

Forty Thieves Solitaire game info

• Family: Forty Thieves Solitaire Games
• Decks: Two decks (104 cards)
• Game time: Long
• Chance of winning: Low

Forty Thieves Solitaire is a popular and challenging solitaire card game. With less than a 10% chance of winning, even if you play well, we find this particular solitaire game very satisfying when we win! For those who are interested in a bit of trivia it's also sometimes known by the names Big Forty, Napoleon at Saint Helena and Le Cadran.

How to play Forty Thieves Solitaire

Goal

In Forty Thieves Solitaire the goal of the game is to move all the cards to the 8 foundation piles located in the upper right corner.

Setting Up Forty Thieves Solitaire

Forty Thieves is a card game played with two decks of cards with all jokers removed. 40 cards are dealt face-up in columns that consist of four cards. All the remaining cards are left in a waste pile that can be used later. As two decks are used you will often notice duplicate cards after setting-up.

Rules

The foundation piles are built in suit in an ascending order from Ace to King. Each foundation starts with an Ace of a particular suit and rises up to the King of that suit. So after an Ace of hearts is put into a foundation pile, it would have to be followed by the two of hearts and so.

You can use the middle 10 piles to hold the cards temporarily while you build up the cards in the foundation piles. You may only move one card at a time, and you can only move a card to another pile if it is one lower and in the same suit. For example you can move a 10 of clubs only onto a Jack of clubs.

When a column is empty you can move any single card onto it to start it off.

If you cannot make a move you can turn over a new card by clicking on the facedown deck in the top left of the game screen. You can turn over a single card at a time and put them whenever you decide you want to or of course if there are no possible moves for you. Of course you can only use the top card of the waste pile.

You are only allowed to pass through the waste pile once, so resetting the deck is not allowed. This makes Forty Thieves Solitaire quite difficult.

Don't forget to ask for a hint during the game, it can help to spot possible moves you might have missed.

You will have to restart if you have used all the stock cards and cannot put all the cards on the foundation.

Scoring

Each card moved to one of the foundations scores 500 points. Moving a card back from the foundations to the tableau will deduct 500 points.

After completing a round, there are two bonuses: time bonus and round bonus.

The time bonus depends on how quickly the round is completed. During a round the current time is indicated at the right top of the game, together with the current bonus (gold / silver / bronze). The scores are as follows:

• Gold (5 minutes or less): 20,000 points
• Silver (between 5 minutes and 10 minutes): 10,000 points
• Bronze (more than 10 minutes): 5,000 points

The round bonus equals Round Number × 1,000 points.

How to win Forty Thieves Solitaire

Right, so now you've got your head around the rules, let's help you win!

• It's all about the empty columns! Empty columns allow you to restack more cards together, hopefully freeing up a card or column in the process.
• Move lower ranked cards first, as once a higher ranked chain of cards is created it gets much harder to move later on. Having said this, if an empty column presents itself you may find it best to put the higher ranked cards there and work your way down trying to build up the full column.
• Of course always send Aces and twos to the foundation piles immediately. Be careful with other cards, as sometimes you can have two columns of cards in suit, but can only choose one set to place on the foundation. Pick the set that opens up the most possibilities for you.
• It's usually preferable to play cards that have been dealt first, rather than cards in the waste pile. There is a caveat, as you reach the end of the waste pile, you may wish to move those cards as it may end up being tricky going back through the cards you could not use earlier.
• The key is planning your moves. You are always looking out for options that will free up cards that will assist your progress, and that takes a little bit of thought.

Variants

Looking for an easier variation of Forty Thieves? Give Thieves of Egypt a try!

40 Thieves is definitely one of the trickier solitaire games out there, but it's immensely rewarding when you win.

System requirements

Forty Thieves Solitaire can be played in all modern browsers, on all device types (desktop, tablet, mobile), and on all operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, ...).