Napoleon's Square
| A Patience game | |
| Family | Forty Thieves |
|---|---|
| Deck | Double 52-card |
| See also Glossary of solitaire | |
Napoleon's Square is a solitaire card game which uses two decks of playing cards. First described by Lady Adelaide Cadogan in the early 1900s, it is an easy variation of Forty Thieves. It is not determined if Napoleon actually played this game, or any solitaire game named after him.
Rules
First, forty-eight cards are dealt into twelve piles of four cards each, forming three sides of a square. The rest of the deck consist the stock. Fourth "side" of the square is left to be occupied by the foundations.
The object of this game is to place the Aces as they become available and build each of them up to kings.
The top card of each pile is available for play, to be built on the foundations or on another pile. Cards on the tableau are built down in suit and sequences can be moved as a unit. (Solsuite's version of the game, however, does not allow moving sequences as a unit) Spaces, whenever they occur, can be filled with any available card or sequence.
When there are no more plays on the tableau that can be made, the stock is dealt one at a time, and any card that cannot be built on the foundations or on the tableau can be placed on a waste pile, the top card of which is available for play. The stock can only be dealt once.
The game ends soon after the stock has run out. The game is won (which is very likely) when all cards are built onto the foundations.