How to Play Forty Thieves Solitaire

A challenging two-deck game where you work through a ten-column tableau, building down by suit. Your goal is to move every card to the foundations before the stock runs out.

Setup

1. Shuffle two complete decks together
2. Deal four cards face up to each of ten tableau piles
3. Place eight foundation piles above the tableau
4. Keep the remaining 64 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 suit: place a lower card of the same suit on a higher card
• Only the top card of each tableau pile can be moved; you cannot move sequences of cards together
• Fill any empty tableau pile with any available card
• The stock has no redeal; once it runs out, you can only play cards already visible

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 and cards still fill the waste pile or tableau.

Tips

• Plan ahead: look at buried cards before making moves that cover them up
• Create empty tableau spaces to give yourself more playing room
• Work on building complete suits rather than splitting cards across the tableau

Play Forty Thieves free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Forty Thieves 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 (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.
• Outback — Outback deals two decks across eight tableau piles, where every pile builds in a single suit instead of alternating colors, and you can relocate any run of face-up cards as a group as long as the bottom card fits.