Skip to content
CardTray
Free tools & guides

Forty Thieves

How to Play Forty Thieves (4 deck) Solitaire

2 min read
The opening deal of Forty Thieves (4 deck) Solitaire, laid out on a green felt table.

The ultimate challenge: Forty Thieves with four decks and a sprawling 14-column tableau. This is a long, complex game requiring careful planning and a large display.

Setup

  1. Shuffle four complete decks together
  2. Deal six cards face up to each of fourteen tableau piles
  3. Place sixteen foundation piles above the tableau
  4. Keep the remaining 124 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
  • Fill any empty tableau pile with any available card
  • The stock has no redeal

How to win

Objective: Move all 208 cards to the sixteen foundations, building each suit from Ace to King

You win when all 208 cards reach the foundations. You're stuck when no legal moves remain.

Tips

  • Plan your moves carefully given the large number of cards and columns
  • Multiple copies of each card mean flexibility in sequencing
  • Prioritize uncovering deeply buried cards early

Play Forty Thieves (4 deck) free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Forty Thieves (4 deck) 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:

  • 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.
  • Quadrangle — A challenging two-deck game from the Forty Thieves family.
  • Robie — A two-deck game where the tableau begins empty and fills as you play, giving you maximum flexibility from the start since you can place any card from the stock or waste to open up space.

The tool for this — Game Gallery

Every game in one library: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid, Golf, Yukon and three hundred more. Each one shows a preview of its opening deal and how often you've played and won it. Learn more about the Game Gallery.

Windows 10/11 (x64) · Free · No account

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

Related guides & tools

Play it free on Windows

CardTray has this game and about 320 more, saved on every move, with any deal playable again exactly and a new winnable deal every day.

Windows 10/11 (x64) · Free · No account

Runs on your PC · nothing uploaded · no ads, no paid tier