How to Play Forty and Eight Solitaire

A challenging two-deck game with eight tableau piles, a large stock, and one chance to redeal. The generous initial layout makes recovery possible but requires careful planning.

Setup

1. Forty cards are dealt into 8 tableau piles of 5 cards each, face-up
2. Eight foundation piles wait for Aces
3. Sixty-four remaining cards form the stock

How to play

• Click the stock to deal one card at a time to the waste pile
• Build the tableau down by one rank, same suit; only the top card of each pile can be moved
• Any card can fill an empty tableau pile
• Play top cards from the tableau or waste pile to the foundations to build up by suit
• Once a card in the tableau has no other cards it can be built on, it moves automatically to a foundation pile (you can change this in Settings)
• When the stock is depleted, you can redeal: the waste pile is turned face-down and becomes the stock again for one final pass

How to win

Objective: Build all eight Ace foundations up to Kings by suit.

You win when all cards are built onto the eight foundations. You're stuck when the second stock pass is exhausted and no foundation moves remain.

Tips

• Use empty tableau piles strategically to access cards trapped deeper in the layout
• Pay attention to high-value cards in the waste during your first pass; they'll appear again in the redeal
• Build foundations aggressively to free tableau space when possible

Play Forty and Eight free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Forty and 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 Thieves — A challenging two-deck game where you work through a ten-column tableau, building down by suit.
• Forty Thieves (3 deck) — A larger version of Forty Thieves using three decks, giving you more cards to work with and a 12-column tableau.
• Forty Thieves (4 deck) — The ultimate challenge: Forty Thieves with four decks and a sprawling 14-column tableau.
• Lucas — A one-deck Forty Thieves cousin spread across thirteen tableau piles.
• McClellan — Build eight foundations using two decks while managing eight tableau piles where cards must be built in the same suit.