How to Play Little Billie Solitaire

Little Billie is a two-deck game featuring dual foundation piles that build in opposite directions. With eight reserve cells and no building on the tableau itself, you rely on temporary storage and careful planning to win.

Setup

1. Deal 4 cards face-up to each of 24 fan piles forming the tableau
2. Place 8 cards into 8 reserve cells (one card per cell)
3. Four foundation piles start empty and build upward by suit once an Ace is available, one suit per pile
4. Four more foundation piles start empty and build downward by suit once a King is available, one suit per pile, wrapping from Ace back to King

How to play

• From tableau or reserve, only the top card is accessible
• Play cards to foundations: Aces build up to Kings, Kings build down to Aces in the same suit
• Tableau piles are stacks—you can only move the top card
• Any card can be placed in an empty reserve cell to temporarily store it
• Reserve cells act as temporary holding spaces when you need to access buried cards
• Cards that can't be built on the tableau automatically move to the foundations when possible (you can change this in Settings to always or never)
• When stuck, use the Redeal button to shuffle the tableau cards and deal them back into their piles (you can redeal twice total, any time)

How to win

Objective: Move every card to the foundations: Aces building upward and Kings building downward

You win when all cards move to the foundations. There's no stock in this game—all 104 cards are in play from the start—but you can redeal the fan piles twice if you get stuck, so use your reserve cells wisely too.

Tips

• Use reserve cells strategically to uncover cards you need for the foundations
• Kings-foundation piles build downward by suit, wrapping from Ace back to King
• Plan ahead to avoid filling all reserve cells with cards you won't need soon

Play Little Billie free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Little Billie 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 Foundations family:

• Penta — Penta splits its layout in two: the left foundations build up while the right foundations build down (each side's tableau builds the opposite direction from its foundation), and everything starts from a Five.
• Twenty — Twenty runs two decks through a dual-foundation system: Ace foundations climb upward while King foundations count down.
• Aces and Kings — Use a double deck to build four foundations up from Aces and four foundations down from Kings simultaneously.
• Acey and Kingsley — A variant of Aces and Kings where foundation base cards (Aces and Kings) are dealt to you at the start instead of appearing as you draw them.
• Alexander the Great — A fan-layout game with four foundations split between Aces (red suits) and Kings (black suits), each building in opposite directions.