How to Play Forty-Nine Solitaire

A two-deck cousin of Forty Thieves named for its seven-by-seven tableau grid. Since the tableau ignores suit when building, you get a looser, more flexible game.

Setup

1. Shuffle two complete decks together
2. Deal seven cards face up to each of seven tableau piles, forming a grid
3. Place eight foundation piles above the tableau
4. Keep the remaining 55 cards in the stock

How to play

• Click the stock to deal one card to the waste pile. Only the top waste card is playable
• Move cards from the tableau to the foundations by suit in ascending order (Ace up to King). Cards automatically move to the foundations when they can no longer be built on in the tableau (adjustable in Settings)
• In the tableau, build downward by rank regardless of suit: place any card one rank lower on a higher card
• Only the top card of each tableau pile can be moved
• Fill any empty tableau pile with any available card
• The stock has no redeal; once exhausted, you can only play visible cards

How to win

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

You win when all cards reach the foundations. You're stuck when no legal moves remain.

Tips

• The cross-suit building gives you much more flexibility than traditional Forty Thieves
• Prioritize creating empty tableau spaces for maximum maneuverability
• Build partial sequences in the tableau before moving them to foundations

Play Forty-Nine free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Forty-Nine 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:

• 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.
• Napoleon's Shoulder — A relaxed variant of Napoleon's Square using two decks.