How to Play Bristol Solitaire

A three-waste-pile game where you build the tableau regardless of suit and use the stock strategically to access cards. The goal: Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, each building from Ace up to King in any suit.

Setup

1. Deal 8 tableau piles with 3 cards each, all face up.
2. Leave space for 3 waste piles and 4 foundation piles.
3. Remaining cards form the stock pile.

How to play

• Click the stock to deal one card to each waste pile in turn, cycling through all three.
• When a card is ready for a foundation—the next rank up in any 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 5 can go on any 6.
• Only the top card of each pile is playable.
• Empty tableau piles stay empty; they cannot be refilled.
• The stock deals only one pass—once it runs out, no more new cards appear, so you must finish with what's already on the tableau, waste piles, and foundations.

How to win

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

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

Tips

• Build foundations as often as possible to free up tableau space.
• Rotate through waste piles thoughtfully to ensure cards you need aren't buried.
• Emptying a tableau pile is permanent since it can never be refilled, so think about whether clearing one is really worth it.

Play Bristol free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Bristol 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:

• Bureau — A two-deck Klondike relative with 13 tableau piles, where foundations build in opposite colors and you get one extra pass through the stock.
• Cassim — A flexible tableau-building game where you can recycle through the stock as many times as needed, making it more forgiving than traditional Klondike.
• Double Easthaven — This larger take on Easthaven mixes two decks together across eight tableau piles and eight foundations.
• Double Gold Rush — This two-deck relative of Klondike deals a rising pyramid of tableau piles and shrinks the stock deal each time you go through it.
• Double Trigon — A two-deck variant with a triangular tableau arrangement.