How to Play Fours Up Solitaire

A two-deck game that starts with Fours instead of Aces. Build foundations from Four to Three in each suit while managing a small six-column tableau with cross-suit sequence building.

Setup

1. Shuffle two complete decks together (all thirteen ranks stay in the deck)
2. Deal one card face up to each of six tableau piles
3. Deal the eight Fours straight to the eight foundation piles as their starting cards
4. Keep the remaining 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
• Build foundations upward from the Fours in the same suit: 4, 5, 6...King, then wrap around and keep going with Ace, 2, and 3 to finish that suit. 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 regardless of suit: place any card one rank lower on a higher card
• You can move a sequence of cards together if each card is one rank lower than the card below it
• Fill any empty tableau pile with any available card
• The stock has no redeal

How to win

Objective: Move all 104 cards to the eight foundations, building each suit from Four to Three (wrapping around)

You win when all 104 cards reach the foundations. You're stuck when no legal moves remain.

Tips

• Remember the foundation order wraps: after King, a suit continues with Ace, 2, then 3
• Cross-suit building in the tableau offers flexibility compared to traditional Forty Thieves
• Create empty tableau spaces to enable sequence moves and uncover buried cards

Play Fours Up free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Fours Up 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:

• 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.
• Rows of Four — Move all cards to eight foundations by building suits upward while arranging tableau piles in any order.