How to Play Acme Solitaire

This Canfield relative tightens the rules: every stack has to match suit, you can only ever move one card at a time, and the stock only cycles through twice before the deal is over. The goal: Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, building each from Ace to King in suit.

Setup

1. Four foundation piles (start with Aces dealt at game start)
2. A reserve with 13 cards (top card face up, rest face down)
3. Four tableau piles (one card each)
4. A stock and waste pile

How to play

• Click the stock to deal one card to the waste pile
• Play the top card from the waste, the reserve, or a tableau pile onto a foundation or a valid tableau pile
• Build foundations upward in suit: Ace through King
• Build tableau downward in suit (e.g., 10♠ on J♠); only the top card of a pile can move
• The top reserve card is playable; when it's taken, the next reserve card turns face up
• An emptied tableau pile is instantly refilled with the top reserve card; once the reserve is used up, any card can fill an empty tableau space
• Cards automatically move to the foundation when they can't be built on any other cards—you can change this behavior in Settings
• The stock and waste can be redealt once, for two total passes through the stock

How to win

Objective: Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, building each from Ace to King in suit.

You win when all 52 cards reach the foundations. You're stuck when the second pass through the stock ends and cards remain unplayed.

Tips

• Reserve cards are precious—use them wisely since you're limited to top cards only
• Keep tableau spaces open for crucial blocking plays
• Plan your stock draws carefully; you only get two passes

Play Acme free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Acme alongside 300+ other games. It saves every move as you play, so you can close the window and pick the game up later, replay any deal, and take on a new Daily Challenge deal every day. Browse every game in the Game Gallery.

Related games

More games from the Canfield family:

• Canfield Rush — A variant of Canfield that gets progressively easier with each deal.
• Rainbow — A flexible Canfield variant where the foundation starting rank is chosen randomly each deal, giving you a fresh puzzle each game with a single pass through the stock.
• Beehive — A Storehouse variant where you match cards by rank alone, building identical-rank stacks in the tableau.