How to Play Brisbane Solitaire

A variation of Yukon with a staggered deal that lets you build the tableau regardless of suit, making it accessible and strategic. The goal: Move all 52 cards to the foundations, building each in ascending suit sequence from Ace to King.

Setup

1. Deal all 52 cards into seven columns with a staggered pattern: column 1 has 5 face-up cards, and each later column adds one more face-down card underneath—columns 2 and 3 end with 5 face-up cards on top, and columns 4 through 7 end with 4 face-up cards on top, up to 6 face-down cards in column 7.
2. There's no stock or waste in this game—every card is dealt into the columns at the start.
3. Leave space for 4 foundation piles, which begin when an Ace is exposed.

How to play

• When a card is ready for a foundation—the next rank up in its suit—it moves there automatically. You can adjust this behavior in Settings if you prefer.
• Build tableau piles down by rank in any suit—any 6 can go on any 7.
• Move any group of face-up cards together, even if they're not in order; only the bottom card must legally land.
• When face-down cards become exposed, flip them automatically.
• Fill empty columns only with a King or a King-led sequence.

How to win

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

Win by moving all cards to the foundations. You're stuck when no more moves remain.

Tips

• Focus on exposing face-down cards to unlock sequences.
• Use empty columns tactically to temporarily move cards around.
• Look for long face-up sequences you can move as a group to unblock cards beneath.

Play Brisbane free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Brisbane 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 Yukon family:

• Double Russian — A two-deck variant where face-down cards are gradually revealed as you play.
• Dragon — This same-suit cousin of Chinese spreads the whole deck across seven tableau piles right away.
• Moosehide — A Yukon variant where tableau building requires different suits instead of opposite colors, and you can freely move any group of face-up cards together—creating puzzle-like rearrangement challenges.
• Russian — A challenging game where hidden cards drive the strategy and any face-up card can move with its entire fan.
• Triple Russian — Build up 12 foundation piles one suit at a time from a tableau of 13 piles dealt with varying amounts of face-down cards.