La Belle Lucie Solitaire

La Belle Lucie — The Beautiful Lucy — earns its elegant name through its appearance on the table. Fifty-two cards spread into eighteen overlapping fans, each fanned open so all cards are visible, creates one of the most distinctive layouts in all of solitaire. The game looks like a solved puzzle before you begin to play.

The appearance is misleading. La Belle Lucie is one of the hardest standard patience games to win, with a success rate of roughly one in ten deals. First published in English by Lady Adelaide Cadogan in 1870, it has been frustrating and delighting players for over 150 years under a half-dozen names: The Fan, Lovely Lucy, Clover Leaves, Midnight Oil, Trefoil, and Three Shuffles and a Draw.

The difficulty comes from its movement rules. Only the outermost card of each fan is available to play. A card buried under one or two others is completely inaccessible until those outer cards move. Moving an outer card means either sending it to a foundation or placing it on a fan whose outermost card is the same suit and one rank higher. Same-suit building only — no cross-suit sequences.

Empty fans cannot be refilled. When all cards in a fan are played, that fan disappears, narrowing the available moves. As the game progresses, fewer options remain. The game collapses toward either clean foundations or an impenetrable tangle.

Two redeals are permitted. After exhausting all moves, gather the remaining fan cards, shuffle, and redeal into new fans of three. Two chances to reshuffle softens the finality — but rarely rescues a deeply entangled position. The game is remorseless, gorgeous, and worth playing.

1. Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Deal all 52 cards face-up in overlapping fans of three. Seventeen fans contain exactly three cards each; the one remaining card forms its own fan of one. All cards are visible within each fan.
2. Place four empty foundation piles beside the fans.

Only the outermost card of each fan may be played — the rightmost or top card, not covered by any other card in its fan.

On each turn you may:

• Play to a foundation. Any Ace that is an outermost card may move to an empty foundation. Subsequent cards add in ascending order by suit: the 2 of Spades on the Ace of Spades, the 3 of Spades on the 2, and so on through the King.
• Move between fans. An outermost card may go onto the outermost card of another fan only if the receiving card is the same suit and exactly one rank higher. The 6 of Hearts may go on the 7 of Hearts if the 7 is the outermost card of its fan. No cross-suit building is allowed.
• Note empty fans. When a fan is emptied, that space is not refilled. It disappears, reducing the number of available fans.

Redeals: When no more moves are possible, perform a redeal. Collect all cards still in the fans — not those on foundations — shuffle them, and redeal into new fans of three, with any remainder forming a smaller final fan. A maximum of two redeals are permitted.

The game is won when all 52 cards are on the four foundations, built from Ace to King by suit.

La Belle Lucie was first published in English by Lady Adelaide Cadogan in 1870 in her foundational patience compendium — one of the earliest dedicated books of card solitaire games in English. The game is believed to have French origins. The name translates to "The Beautiful Lucy," and the fan layout has associations with French card game aesthetics of the era.

The game accumulated a remarkable number of alternative names, each reflecting the communities where it appeared. "The Fan" describes the layout. "Three Shuffles and a Draw" describes the redeal structure precisely. "Midnight Oil" suggests the late-night frustration of players trying to win. "Trefoil" invokes the three-card fans' resemblance to a clover leaf. Each name is a small portrait of how different players experienced the same game.

Its longevity comes from combining full information with genuine difficulty. Unlike games where hidden cards create unavoidable randomness, La Belle Lucie shows you everything and still beats you most of the time. That quality has made it a benchmark for discussions of solitaire difficulty and a favorite of serious patience enthusiasts throughout its 150-year history.

In digital solitaire collections, La Belle Lucie has remained a consistent inclusion — valued for its distinctive fan layout and its reputation as a game that is satisfying to lose as well as to win.

• Start with a full survey. All cards are visible from the first deal. Before moving anything, trace the dependencies: which cards must move first to uncover Aces, which fans are already in useful order, and which are completely blocked.
• Every move is a commitment. Moving an outermost card exposes the card beneath it, which may be immediately useful or immediately problematic. Think one or two exposures ahead before pulling a card.
• Don't chase empty fans. Empty fans disappear — they cannot be refilled. Clearing a fan provides no lasting benefit beyond the card you moved. Do not work to empty fans for the sake of empty space; there is none.
• Build foundations evenly. An Ace on a foundation with no supporting 2 in playable position is nearly useless. Cards for lagging foundations may be buried in unreachable spots, so the order you build matters.
• Plan redeals carefully. Redeals are a reset, not a solution — they may produce an equally bad layout. Two redeals is not a generous allowance for a 52-card tangle. Leave the position before a redeal in the state most likely to benefit from a reshuffle.