How to Play Eight by Eight Solitaire

A two-deck solitaire with eight columns and eight rows of tableau cards, where you work through a stock that redeals with fewer cards each pass. Build sequences regardless of suit in the tableau to reach the foundations.

Setup

1. Eight foundation piles are laid out (one for each suit, twice).
2. A stock pile deals cards to a waste pile; you have three passes total (redeals) with fewer cards each pass.
3. Eight tableau piles contain eight cards each, all face up in a grid.
4. Empty tableau spaces cannot be filled.

How to play

• Click the stock to deal 3 cards to the waste pile; each later pass deals one fewer card than the last, across three passes total.
• Build tableau sequences downward by one rank, ignoring suit.
• Move entire sequences of cards together to build longer runs.
• Play cards to foundations from the tableau or waste, building up in suit.
• Only the top card of each tableau pile and the waste can be played to foundations.
• After exhausting the stock, click again to redeal (with fewer cards).
• Qualifying cards automatically move to the foundations when no other play can be made; you can adjust this in Settings.

How to win

Objective: Move all 104 cards to the eight foundations, building up from Ace to King in each suit.

Win by moving all cards to the foundations. You're stuck when no moves remain and you've used all three passes through the stock.

Tips

• Aim to build long sequences early to reduce clutter on the board.
• Empty spaces are scarce, so plan tableau moves carefully.
• Focus on exposing buried cards needed for foundations.

Play Eight by Eight free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Eight by Eight 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 Forty Thieves family:

• Forty-Nine — A two-deck cousin of Forty Thieves named for its seven-by-seven tableau grid.
• Fours Up — A two-deck game that starts with Fours instead of Aces.
• Little Forty — Little Forty relaxes the suit restrictions of Forty Thieves: build the tableau in any suit and move whole sequences together regardless of suit.
• Maria — Work through nine overlapping tableau piles to build eight foundations up in suit.
• Midshipman — Build eight foundations using two decks while managing nine tableau piles that begin with a couple of cards face down in each.