How to Play Pantagruel Solitaire

Pantagruel is a two-deck Klondike variant with nine tableau piles, giving you a bit more room to maneuver while you build in alternating colors and work through a single-pass stock. The goal: Move all 104 cards to eight foundation piles, building each suit from Ace to King.

Setup

1. Nine tableau piles are dealt: 1 card to the first pile, 2 to the second, continuing up to 9 cards in the final pile. Only the top card of each pile is face up.
2. Eight foundation piles build from Ace (base) to King, one suit per pile.
3. A stock pile contains remaining cards. Click to deal one card at a time to a waste pile.
4. There is no redeal; once the stock is exhausted, you can't restart it.

How to play

• Play Aces to start the foundations.
• Build on tableau piles by placing cards one rank lower in opposite colors (red on black, black on red).
• Move entire sequences together if each card is one rank lower and opposite color from the card below it.
• Play cards from the waste pile or tableau directly to the foundations.
• Empty a tableau pile can be filled with any card or sequence.
• Matching cards move to the foundations automatically once no other card could be built on them; you can adjust this behavior in Settings.

How to win

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

You win when all 104 cards are stacked on the eight foundation piles. You're stuck when no more moves are available and the stock is exhausted.

Tips

• Nine tableau piles give you a bit of extra room to maneuver and uncover face-down cards.
• Expose face-down cards early to unlock more play options.
• Balance working the waste pile with making strategic tableau moves to access deeply buried cards.

Play Pantagruel free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Pantagruel 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 Klondike family:

• Rouge Forty — Ten tableau piles are dealt four cards deep with only the top card showing, and you dig through them to feed four color-based foundations and four complete-run foundations.
• Single Interchange — A tough single-deck game that keeps every tableau build strictly within one suit, easing the pressure a little with unlimited stock redeals.
• Strata — A compact puzzle using a stripped two-deck set of 64 cards (no ranks below Seven).
• Thirty Nine Steps — Build all cards to the foundations while arranging tableau piles in descending order by suit.
• Thirty Six — Fill a compact 6-by-6 spread of tableau piles and empty it by stacking cards downward without worrying about suit, sending everything up to the foundations.