How to Play Intelligence Solitaire

A two-deck solitaire where you arrange 18 piles of 3 cards and build them upward or downward within suit. The stock automatically refills empty piles as you play, giving you more options as the game progresses.

Setup

1. Deal 18 tableau piles with 3 cards each, all face-up
2. Set aside 8 empty foundation piles (two for each suit, since two decks are in play)
3. Keep the rest of the deck in a stock pile that automatically fills empty tableau piles as they empty; you cannot deal from it by hand

How to play

• Build tableau piles upward or downward by one rank within the same suit
• Only the top card of each tableau pile can be moved, to another tableau pile or to a foundation
• Cards automatically move to the foundations once no other card could be built on them (you can change this in Settings if preferred)
• Build foundation piles upward by rank within each suit
• When a tableau pile empties, the top stock card automatically fills it (if the stock has cards available)
• During the initial deal, any card that could start an empty foundation goes there instead of its tableau pile, and that pile gets another card in its place
• When stuck, use the Redeal button (available twice) to shuffle the tableau and deal it back out in the original pile size

How to win

Objective: Move every card to the foundations, building each suit from Ace up to King.

You win when all 104 cards are arranged in the 8 foundation piles, each containing a complete suit from Ace to King. The automatic fill mechanism and redeals make this achievable with careful play.

Tips

• The automatic fill from the stock gives you extra flexibility; use empty piles to rearrange cards
• Watch for foundation cards buried in the tableau that will auto-promote when they become playable
• Save redeals for genuine dead ends; they're your last resort for complete reshuffles

Play Intelligence free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Intelligence 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 Fan family:

• Midnight Clover — Build four foundations from aces while managing a 16-pile fan where cards can only be moved from the top.
• Three Shuffles — A fan variant of La Belle Lucie: every card is dealt face up into 18 tableau piles, with the option to reshuffle and redeal twice, plus a final draw of a buried card.
• Ceiling Fan — A single-deck Fan-family game that spreads all 52 cards face up across 18 tableau piles and builds down by alternating color, making for a more open layout than standard Fan.
• Fan — A one-deck game with 18 tableau piles arranged in a fan pattern where only Kings can fill empty spaces and the entire deck is dealt at once.
• FreeFan — A single-deck game combining Fan solitaire with two temporary storage cells, adding flexibility to the traditional fan layout where only Kings can fill empty spaces.