If you’ve ever sat down with two decks of cards and a lot of optimism, only to have your soul crushed by a wall of face-up Spades, you’ve probably played Forty Thieves. It’s a game that doesn’t care about your feelings. Unlike Klondike, which feels like a gentle stroll through the woods, playing just solitaire forty thieves solitaire is more like trying to solve a Rubik's cube while someone throws cards at your head.
It’s hard. Really hard.
Most people lose. Actually, the win rate is estimated to be somewhere around 10%, even if you play like a grandmaster. But that’s exactly why people keep coming back to it. There is a specific kind of satisfaction in beating a game that is mathematically stacked against you.
The Setup: Forty "Thieves" in a Row
The game gets its name from the forty cards dealt face-up into ten columns at the start. These are the "thieves" stealing your chances of a quick victory. You use two full decks—104 cards in total.
The goal? Build eight foundation piles from Ace up to King, separated by suit.
- The Tableau: 10 columns, 4 cards each. All face-up.
- The Stock: The remaining 64 cards.
- The Waste: Where the stock cards go when you realize you’re in trouble.
Everything is out in the open. You can see the Ace of Hearts you need. It’s sitting right there! But it’s buried under a King, a Nine, and a Jack. This transparency is a trap. It makes you think you can win, while the game quietly closes every door in your face.
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Why Just Solitaire Forty Thieves Solitaire is a Brain-Melter
In many solitaire versions, you can move entire stacks of cards if they’re in order. Not here. In the strict, classic rules of just solitaire forty thieves solitaire, you can only move one card at a time.
Let’s say you have a 6, 5, and 4 of Diamonds in a row. In Spider Solitaire, you’d just slide that whole chunk onto a 7. In Forty Thieves? You have to move the 4, then the 5, then the 6. If you don't have empty columns to act as temporary storage, you’re basically stuck.
This single-card rule is what separates the casual players from the obsessed. You have to plan five, six, maybe ten moves ahead. You aren't just playing cards; you're managing real estate.
The Power of the Empty Column
An empty column is the most valuable thing you can own in this game. It's your only "free" space. Because you can put any card into an empty spot, it acts as a pivot point.
Expert players will often sacrifice a potentially good move just to keep a column open. If you fill your last empty spot with a King, you better hope that King was the final piece of the puzzle, because you just lost your maneuverability.
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Tactics That Might Actually Save Your Game
Most people play too fast. They see a card that can go to the foundation and they flick it up there immediately. Honestly, that’s a rookie mistake.
Sometimes you need that 3 of Clubs to stay in the tableau so you can park a 2 of Clubs on top of it later. Once a card goes to the foundation, it’s usually gone for good.
Watch the Waste Pile
You only get one pass through the deck. That’s it. No redeals. Most digital versions like just solitaire forty thieves solitaire follow this strictly. Every time you click that stock pile, you are burning a resource. If you flip a card and can't use it, it sits on the waste pile, potentially burying the very card you'll need three minutes from now.
Low Cards First
Since foundations start with Aces, your priority should always be digging out the low-ranking cards. If there's an Ace at the bottom of a pile, that pile is your primary target. Don't get distracted by making pretty sequences of Kings and Queens if there's a 2 of Spades trapped under them.
A Bit of History (and Legend)
There’s a persistent story that Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final days on St. Helena playing this game. Some people even call it "Napoleon at St. Helena." Whether the former Emperor of France actually spent his exile obsessing over 104 pieces of cardstock is up for debate among historians, but it fits the vibe. It’s a game for someone with a tactical mind and a lot of time on their hands.
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In France, it was sometimes called Le Cadran. No matter the name, the DNA is the same: two decks, ten columns, and a very high probability of failure.
Common Misconceptions
People often think Forty Thieves is just "Hard Klondike." It’s not.
Klondike relies heavily on the luck of the draw because so many cards are face-down. In Forty Thieves, since the initial forty cards are face-up, the luck factor is actually lower. It’s a game of "open information." If you lose, it’s usually because you made a wrong turn four moves ago, not because the deck was "mean" to you.
Another myth is that every game is winnable. It isn't. Even with perfect play, some deals are mathematically impossible. That’s just the nature of the beast.
How to Get Better Right Now
If you want to stop losing every single hand of just solitaire forty thieves solitaire, try these three things:
- Don't fill empty columns immediately. Treat them like gold. Only put a card there if it reveals a card you desperately need or clears another column.
- Delay foundation moves. If moving a card to the foundation doesn't help you clear a tableau spot, leave it where it is. It might be more useful as a landing pad for other cards.
- Count your cards. Since there are two decks, there are two of every card. If you see both Aces of Spades are already in the foundation, you know exactly which Spades can be moved and which are still "floating" in the deck.
Forty Thieves is a test of character. It demands patience, a bit of math, and the ability to walk away when the cards just aren't in your favor. But when you finally clear that last King into the foundation? There’s no feeling quite like it in the world of casual gaming.
Your Next Step:
Open up a game and focus entirely on creating one empty column within the first twenty moves. Don't worry about winning yet; just practice the "shuffling" required to clear a space. Once you master the art of the empty column, your win rate will naturally climb out of the single digits.