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Answers to the questions players ask most about Forty Thieves Solitaire: the rules that catch newcomers, the win-rate numbers, the Napoleon legend that everyone repeats, and the variants the family has spawned. The base game uses two decks (104 cards), 10 columns of 4 face-up cards, eight foundations built up by suit, and a single pass through the 64-card stock with no redeal. Whether this is your first deal or your hundredth, the entries below cover what trips up beginners and what experienced players double-check before committing to a tricky move.
The imagery traces to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves in One Thousand and One Nights. Modern card writers cast each of the 40 face-up tableau cards as a "thief" trying to block the path to the foundations; the "Forty" counts the deal (ten columns, four cards each). The name first appears in 1920s American patience books such as Hoyle Up-to-date (1922) and Seymour's The New Hoyle (1929).
The same-suit constraint cuts available legal moves roughly in half compared to Klondike's two-suits-per-rank rule, and that single difference is the main reason Forty Thieves wins about 10 percent of the time versus Klondike's 30 to 43 percent. The 5 of Clubs goes only on the 6 of Clubs, never on the 6 of Spades. The rule is what makes the game a planning puzzle rather than a sorting exercise.
The base rule moves one card at a time, even when cards form a perfect descending same-suit sequence. To shift a 10-9-8 of Spades, you serialize: park two cards in scratch space, slide the third onto its destination, then bring the parked cards back. Three cards need at least two empty columns or open same-suit landing pads. Some software auto-performs multi-card moves when empty columns exist; that is a UI convenience, not a rule change.
About 10 percent under skilled play. That is the figure cited by Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games, 1949), Bicycle, and the Solitaire Association. A large algorithmic test of 182,919 random deals reports a 3.69 percent rate without skilled-human heuristics, and real-player data clusters near 5 percent. Disciplined play wins 5 to 10 percent.
No. Standard Forty Thieves gives you one pass through the 64-card stock. Cards turn one at a time onto the waste; once the stock is empty, the waste is not recycled. Play continues with only what is currently exposed until the foundations finish or no legal move remains. Some software exposes a "with redeal" toggle as an easier-mode option, but the canonical rule is single-pass.
Empty columns are the most valuable resource in the game. Because Forty Thieves moves one card at a time, an empty column behaves like one FreeCell free cell, letting you park a card while shifting another. Maximum movable chain length equals 1 plus the number of empty columns: two empties move a three-card group, three empties move four. Trading an empty for the wrong card is the most expensive mistake new players make.
Forty Thieves has no Kings-only restriction unlike some Klondike conventions, so any single available card may move into a vacant column: a tableau top, the waste top, or any face-up card. Spending an empty on a card that already had a legal home elsewhere gives up a serialization slot for nothing.
Four constraints stack: same-suit tableau builds (not alternating colors as in Streets, not any-suit as in Diplomat), single-card moves (no group transfers as in Rank and File or Emperor), all 40 tableau cards face-up (no hidden cards as in Number Ten or Deauville), and a one-pass stock with no redeal. Each constraint is mild on its own; the four together produce one of the lowest win rates among the two-deck patiences.
No. Most random deals are unwinnable regardless of how perfectly you play. Solver-side analysis suggests the winnable proportion of randomly dealt games sits in the 5 to 10 percent band, very different from FreeCell where almost every deal is solvable. Two Aces buried under face cards in the same suit, both buried in different columns with no clean digging path, or every column with a face card in its bottom three are early signals of a likely loss. Knowing when to abandon a dead deal is a real skill, not a failure.
Five tactics carry most of the weight. Hoard empty columns and never fill one without naming the card you intend to put there. Treat the stock as a clock, not a resource; scan all ten column tops before drawing. Send Aces, 2s, and 3s up immediately, but hold mid-rank cards as tableau landing pads. Build short same-suit runs on cards you do not need access to. Read the deal early and abandon clearly dead deals quickly. Disciplined play roughly doubles the win rate over reactive play.
The earliest English print appearance is Annie B. Henshaw, Amusements for Invalids (Boston, 1870), as "Napoleon at St. Helena." Lady Adelaide Cadogan describes the same layout under the French name "Le Cadran" ("The Dial") in Illustrated Games of Patience (London, 1874). The names "Big Forty" and "Forty Thieves" emerge in 1920s American sources such as Hoyle Up-to-date (1922) and Paul H. Seymour's The New Hoyle: Standard Games (1929), and Helen Leslie Coops adds "Roosevelt at San Juan" in 100 Games of Solitaire (1939).
Almost certainly not, at least not the version played today. The often-quoted "solitary game of patience" line from John Wilson Croker's 1816 Quarterly Review most likely refers to Count Las Cases breaking in fresh card decks (the Ross and Healey reading), not patience play. Napoleon is documented playing whist at the Briars by Captain Edmund Denman, via John Marshall's Royal Naval Biography (1825). Henshaw's 1870 attribution is the oldest written claim, dating from 49 years after Napoleon died.
The base game uses two decks, but the family has single-deck offshoots that play in roughly half the time. Lucas (13 columns of 3 with the eight Aces pre-placed on the foundations) is the most-played wider-tableau cousin in two-deck form; Canister, Martha, and Westcliff are American single-deck variants that share the build-down-by-suit feel without the 104-card stack. Westcliff is described in patience compilations as the American single-deck variant of the family.
Streets, Rank and File, Lucas, Indian, and Forty and Eight come up most often. Streets builds the tableau down by alternating colors instead of by suit. Rank and File (also called Emperor or Dress Parade) allows group moves of validly-built sequences and is the easiest derivative most software apps offer. Lucas uses 13 columns of 3 with Aces pre-placed and lifts the win rate near 33 percent. Indian builds down in any suit except the same suit. Forty and Eight (the redeal version) shrinks the tableau and allows one redeal of the stock.
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Play Forty Thieves NowFor the rules in full, including the comparison with Klondike and FreeCell, see the Forty Thieves rules guide. For tactics that lift the win rate, including the buried-Ace problem and foundation pacing in two-deck play, see the Forty Thieves strategy guide.