How to Play Batsford Solitaire

This two-card-deck Klondike variant only gives you one trip through the stock, so every move counts, and a small reserve lets you tuck away kings that are blocking your tableau. The goal: Build all eight foundation piles from Ace to King in their suit.

Setup

1. The tableau has 10 piles, receiving 1 card for the first pile, 2 cards for the second, and so on up to 10 cards, with only the top card facing up.
2. A stock and waste pile provide the remaining cards—one at a time, one pass only.
3. Eight foundation piles start empty, ready to receive aces.
4. The reserve holds up to three kings as temporary storage.

How to play

• Build foundations up from Ace to King in the same suit.
• In the tableau, place a card one rank lower and opposite color on top of another card.
• Click the stock to reveal one card to the waste pile. You get only one pass through the stock.
• The top card of the waste pile is available to play on the tableau or foundations.
• You can move a single card, or a whole sequence of cards that's already in build order (descending, alternating colors), from one tableau pile to another.
• When a tableau pile empties, only a King can fill the space.
• You can temporarily store up to three kings in the reserve to free up tableau space.
• Matching cards automatically move to the foundations once no other card can be built on them—you can change this in Settings.

How to win

Objective: Build all eight foundation piles from Ace to King in their suit.

You win when all cards are on the foundations. The single pass through the stock makes this quite difficult.

Tips

• The reserve can only hold three kings, so use it only when you need to unlock the tableau.
• Expose face-down tableau cards early by moving the cards on top of them.
• Plan ahead carefully—with only one pass through the stock, mistakes are costly.

Play Batsford free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Batsford 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 Klondike family:

• Double Minerva — This two-deck game adds a 13-card reserve alongside a tableau dealt in an alternating face-down, face-up pattern.
• Haystack — A single-deck game with a small 8-card reserve pile and a unique diamond-shaped tableau.
• Imperial Guards — A two-deck solitaire where you build tableau piles downward by alternating color and move all cards to foundations.
• Milligan Cell — Build eight foundations using two decks while managing eight tableau piles and four temporary storage cells.
• Seven Devils — Seven Devils is widely considered one of the toughest solitaire games.