Forty Thieves Solitaire

Forty Thieves — also known as Napoleon at St Helena, a name tied to the exiled emperor's card-playing habits — is the great two-deck solitaire game for players who want a serious challenge. Where Klondike offers accessible difficulty and FreeCell rewards careful thinking, Forty Thieves is simply hard. Not beginner-hard — structurally, mechanically, consequentially hard.

The game uses two standard 52-card decks shuffled together, yielding 104 cards. Forty cards are dealt face-up into ten tableau columns of four cards each. Eight foundation piles must be built — two per suit — each from Ace to King. The remaining 64 cards form the stock pile, available one card at a time.

What makes Forty Thieves so demanding is its movement restriction: only one card may move at a time, and tableau sequences must be built in descending order of the same suit. This is far stricter than Klondike's alternating-color rule. You cannot move a red 7 onto a black 8 — you must place a spade 7 on a spade 8. With 104 cards in play and one-card moves only, the pressure is constant.

The ten-column tableau gives good visibility, but buried cards are often blocked by cards that cannot help each other. Single-card movement prevents the table-clearing sequences that provide relief in other games.

Win rates with optimal play are estimated around 10% with careful play, and most players win much less often. The game rewards deep analysis and punishes casual play. Its reputation as a Napoleon-era pastime — true or not — suits its stately, demanding character.

1. Shuffle two standard 52-card decks together to make a 104-card deck. Deal ten tableau columns of four cards each, all face-up and fanned so all ranks are visible. The remaining 64 cards form the stock pile, placed face-down. Set aside eight empty foundation piles, waiting for their starting Aces.
2. On each turn, move only one card at a time. A card may move from the top of a tableau column to another column if it is the same suit and one rank lower than the top card of the destination. For example, a 7 of spades may go on an 8 of spades. Cards of different suits may not be combined, even if they alternate in color.
3. When an Ace becomes the top card of a tableau column or is drawn from the stock, move it to a foundation pile. Build each foundation upward by suit from Ace to King. Only the top card of each tableau column is available for play.
4. On each turn, you may draw one card from the stock to a single waste pile. The top card of the waste pile is always available to play. The stock may not be redealt once exhausted.
5. An empty tableau column may be filled with any single available card. The game is won when all 104 cards are on the eight foundation piles, each built from Ace to King in a single suit.

• Think before every move. The same-suit restriction means many appealing moves are dead ends. Before moving a card, ask whether it opens a useful sequence or just swaps one obstruction for another.
• Guard the waste pile. Every stock draw that doesn't produce a playable card shortens your future options. Play directly from the tableau when you can. Save stock draws for when tableau options are truly exhausted.
• Treat empty columns as precious. With only single-card moves, an empty column acts as a one-card buffer for rearranging sequences. Resist filling empty columns without a clear plan.
• Track both copies of each card. Two decks means two of everything. If one 8 of hearts is buried, the other may be reachable. Note where duplicates are, especially for the suits where your foundations are furthest behind.
• Keep foundations balanced. Falling far behind on one suit means those cards clutter the tableau longest. Push all four suits forward incrementally rather than racing one suit to completion.
• Open the right column first. Not all ten starting columns deserve equal attention. Attack the column whose top card is highest in rank (a King or Queen) first — those cards block no foundation play and emptying that column gives you a buffer worth more than any individual sequence in the middle columns.
• Refuse foundation plays that strand a tableau card. If sending the 5 of hearts to its foundation removes the only legal landing spot for the exposed 4 of hearts above it, hold the 5. Foundation plays look like progress, but a foundation move that traps another card costs you more moves than it saves.

Forty Thieves is one of the oldest formally documented solitaire games, appearing in European patience collections from the late 19th century. The name Napoleon at St Helena is the most evocative of its aliases. It suggests the deposed French emperor played the game during his imprisonment on St Helena after 1815. Historians have found no proof of this, but the story has persisted for over a century and remains the game's most poetic alternate name.

The game appears in Mary Whitmore Jones's Games of Patience series from the 1880s and 1890s, cementing its place among the canonical Victorian patience games. The alternate name Roosevelt at San Juan appears in some American compilations, following the tradition of attaching famous military figures to demanding two-deck games.

The digital era brought Forty Thieves to a global audience through computer solitaire collections, where it became a benchmark for difficulty. Other two-deck games are often measured against it. It remains one of the few classic solitaire games that consistently challenges experienced players.