How to Play Napoleon's Shoulder Solitaire

A relaxed variant of Napoleon's Square using two decks. Build foundations by suit while the tableau allows any-suit sequences, giving you much more flexibility.

Setup

1. Tableau has 12 piles of 4 cards each, all face up
2. Eight foundation piles sit empty; Aces will anchor each suit
3. Stock holds remaining cards; click to deal one card to the waste, with only one pass through the stock and no redeal
4. Only the top card of each tableau pile or the waste is available to play

How to play

• Find Aces in the tableau or waste to start foundation piles
• Build foundations up in suit (2♠ on A♠, then 3♠, etc.)
• Cards automatically move to the foundations once no other card could be built on them (you can change this in Settings)
• In the tableau, build down in any suit (a red 6 on a black 7, or any 5 on any 6)
• Move only one card at a time from the tableau
• Empty tableau piles can be filled with any card
• The waste pile's top card is your only stock option, so use it wisely
• Click the stock to deal cards one at a time when you're stuck

How to win

Objective: Move all 104 cards to the eight foundation piles, building each from Ace to King in suit.

Win when all 104 cards fill the foundation piles. You're stuck when no more cards can move and you've dealt through the entire stock.

Tips

• Use empty tableau spaces to temporarily park cards, creating cascades across multiple piles
• Prioritize exposing Aces and building foundations early—this frees up tableau space
• Don't fill empty piles randomly; plan moves that expose buried high cards

Play Napoleon's Shoulder free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Napoleon's Shoulder 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:

• Rows of Four — Move all cards to eight foundations by building suits upward while arranging tableau piles in any order.
• Thieves of Egypt — This two-deck game deals its tableau in a pyramid, and you build alternating-color runs there while filling eight foundation piles.
• Waterloo — A two-deck stock-based solitaire with minimal tableau space and relaxed building rules.
• Barricade A — A straightforward two-deck solitaire where you build foundations regardless of suit and arrange twelve tableau piles in descending order.
• Barricade B — A challenging two-deck variant of Barricade where you build the foundations in suit order instead of any-suit, and you can't play cards directly from the stock.