How to Play Seven Devils Solitaire

Seven Devils is widely considered one of the toughest solitaire games. It uses two decks, a reserve pile of 13 cards that you can draw from, and a seven-pile tableau in Klondike style.

Setup

1. Eight foundation piles start empty, ready for Aces (two of each suit from the two decks).
2. A stock of remaining cards is placed for drawing.
3. A waste pile collects the cards drawn from the stock; only the top card is available to play.
4. A reserve pile holds 13 face-up cards available for play.
5. Seven tableau piles are dealt Klondike-style: 1 card to the first pile, 2 to the second, and so on through 7, with only the top card of each pile face up.

How to play

• Build on the foundations upward in suit, starting with Ace (A♠, 2♠, 3♠, and so on).
• On the tableau, build downward in opposite colors (red 6 on black 7, for example).
• You can move groups of cards together if they form a valid sequence (each card is one rank lower and opposite color from the card it covers).
• Only the top card of the reserve pile can be played; it can go to the tableau or foundations.
• Only the top card of the waste pile can be played; draw from the stock to access cards below.
• Click the stock to draw one card at a time; once the stock is empty, click it again to flip the waste back over as a new stock (not reshuffled), as many times as you need.
• Empty tableau piles can only be filled with a King.

How to win

Objective: Move all 104 cards to the eight foundations by building upward in suit from Ace.

You win when all cards are in the foundations. You're stuck when no more moves are available.

Tips

• Work methodically to expose cards in the tableau, especially reserve cards early on.
• Build on the foundations when possible, but don't rush; strategic tableau moves often come first.
• Plan ahead to create empty tableau piles for Kings, as these are essential for deep tableau moves.

Play Seven Devils free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Seven Devils 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:

• Triple Minerva — A tactical game combining tableau building with a 15-card reserve and 2 total passes through the stock.
• Zerline — This two-deck game flips the usual card order: foundations start on Kings and climb through the ranks with Queens as the top card.
• Agnes Bernauer — Each game chooses a random base rank for all four foundations, which then build upward in suit from that rank, wrapping around.
• Batsford — This two-card-deck Klondike variant only gives you one trip through the stock, so every move counts, and a small reserve lets you tuck away kings that are blocking your tableau.
• Double Minerva — This two-deck game adds a 13-card reserve alongside a tableau dealt in an alternating face-down, face-up pattern.