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Forty Thieves wins about 10 percent of the time under skilled play and 3.69 percent across random algorithmic deals (a 182,919-game test). The six-percentage-point gap is what disciplined play earns; the rest is the deal. This guide covers the tactics that close it: empty-column hoarding, foundation pacing, stock conservation, and the buried-Ace triage that decides most close deals. Every example uses specific cards from positions worth recognizing the next time they appear.
Four constraints stack on each other. The tableau builds down by suit only, so each rank has one legal landing instead of two. Cards move one at a time, so a clean 10-9-8 of Spades does not transfer as a group. The 64-card stock runs once with no redeal. And the foundation is one-way.
The 182,919-game algorithmic test lands at 3.69 percent. Real-player platform data clusters near 5 percent. The Morehead and Mott-Smith 1949 patience canon, Wikipedia, and the Solitaire Association sit at 10 percent for skilled play.
Most deals are decided by a few irreversible mistakes: a buried Ace under two Kings, an empty column traded for a card that did not need one, a foundation promotion that strands the same-suit card one rank lower. Skill is not making those mistakes.
Drawing before exhausting tableau plays. With the 6 of Spades on column 4 and the 7 of Spades on the waste, a beginner flips the next stock card before lifting the 6-S onto the 7-S. The new card buries the 7-S and the spade run is dead. Scan all ten column tops before touching the stock.
Filling an empty column with the first available card. After clearing column 7 to lift the King of Hearts, a beginner drops the 6 of Diamonds from waste into the gap. The empty was the strongest resource on the board, spent on a card with a fine home elsewhere. Never fill an empty column without naming the card you intend to put there.
Burying a low card with a higher one of the same suit. The 4 of Clubs sits on column 2 and the player drops the 5 of Clubs onto it from column 9. The 4-C was one move from the foundation; now it needs a 5-C above it forever. Before any same-suit move, check that the bottom card is not better off promoted or kept clear.
Racing one suit to the King. A Hearts foundation already at 7-H tempts the player to pour every Heart into it. The board ends with Hearts done at King but the other foundations stuck around 4 or 5. Foundations need to advance roughly in step.
Treating the two decks as cosmetic. The 9 of Diamonds buried under three cards is not a crisis if the second 9-D is still in the stock. But if both Aces of a suit are buried in different columns, that suit is in trouble.
Maximum movable chain length equals 1 plus the number of empty columns. Because Forty Thieves only moves a single card, an empty column behaves like one FreeCell free cell. Two empties transfer a two-card sequence: park one in the empty, slide the second to its destination, then bring the parked card back. Three empties move a three-card unit.
With three empties and a target column showing the 9 of Spades on the 8 of Spades on the 7 of Spades, those three cards are effectively a movable group. Without the empties, the same three must be relocated one at a time, and the move usually fails.
Spend empty columns only when the move they enable cannot be made any other way. A waste card with a legal tableau home goes to the tableau, not the empty. See Forty Thieves rules for the single-card movement rule.
The stock has 64 cards and one pass. Every flip is irreversible. Delay drawing whenever the tableau has any productive move, even small ones like surfacing a card that enables a same-suit drop.
When you do draw, keep the waste short. A long waste pile is a list of cards you may have already lost. Failure mode: the 5 of Diamonds sits on the waste, the 6 of Diamonds is on top of column 6, and the player flips the next stock card before lifting the 5-D onto the 6-D. The new flip buries the 5-D and the 5 may never see the foundation. Flip second, build first.
Send Aces, 2s, and 3s up immediately. Those low cards anchor everything and never serve in tableau builds. From the 4 upward, the rule inverts.
A 4 of Hearts at the bottom of an otherwise-tidy 4-H, 3-H run can be more valuable as a landing zone for a 3-H still in the waste than as one tick on the foundation. Foundation promotion is one-way; the card cannot return if a same-suit landing later opens.
Do not promote a card if you can see that promoting it strands a same-suit card one rank lower with no other home. The 5 of Hearts on the foundation looks like progress until you notice the 4 of Hearts at the bottom of column 8 with no 5-H left in play.
Build short same-suit runs on cards you do not need access to, because nothing transfers as a unit. A Q-J-10 of Diamonds on a column whose lower cards are garbage is excellent; the column becomes a parking lot.
The worst runs are mid-rank stacks on low cards the foundations need. A 9 of Spades on a 5 of Spades is a liability because the 5-S must reach the foundation eventually, and now it cannot until the 9-S and everything above comes off. When choosing where to drop a card, prefer the column whose buried cards are higher in rank than the receiver, so the stack acts as cold storage.
When a card has two legal targets, one a sequence and one a singleton, cover the sequence. The 8 of Diamonds onto a 9-D, 10-D pair costs nothing new because the pair is already locked into a same-suit dependency. Covering a lone 9-D commits a fresh column to a chain that did not exist before.
A buried Ace is the most common deal-killer. When an Ace is the third or fourth card of a column at deal time, the cards above must be cleared. Three mitigations cover most cases.
Name a destination for each card above the Ace before digging. Column 5 holds, top to bottom, the King of Diamonds, 9 of Clubs, 4 of Spades, and Ace of Hearts. The K-D needs an empty column or a foundation-adjacent landing; the 9-C needs a 10-C; the 4-S can go to the foundation if Spades is at 3-S. If the K-D has no landing, the Ace is effectively dead.
Use the duplicate. If the second Ace of Hearts is visible on top of column 8, abandon the dig. Promote that Ace and write the buried one off. The same logic applies if the second Ace is likely to flip in the first ten stock draws.
Accept the loss. Sometimes one Ace is unrecoverable and the strategy becomes “win three foundations, scrap the fourth.” This is correct on some deals.
Pace the two foundations of each suit slightly out of step. When the first Hearts foundation reaches 7-H and the second is still at Ace-H, feed the second Hearts foundation through the low cards before pushing the first beyond 8-H.
The high Hearts (J, Q, K) are most useful as endgame landing pads on the tableau. A King of Hearts on the tableau is a permanent home for a Queen of Hearts, which is a permanent home for a Jack of Hearts. If both foundations have eaten the high Hearts, the tableau loses those landings when the endgame needs them.
Advance both foundations of a suit roughly together up to the 7 or 8, then let one finish while the other holds back as a safety valve.
Some deals are unwinnable from the first card. Signals of a likely loss:
A “rich” deal is the opposite. At least two Aces visible on top of columns. Several low cards exposed. Same-suit pairs already adjacent at column tops, so a same-suit lift is the first move.
Solver-side analysis suggests the winnable proportion of randomly dealt games sits in the 5 to 10 percent band; most random shuffles are genuinely unwinnable. Grinding through a clearly dead deal is time spent for a fixed loss; redealing is the right call.
Example 1: empty-column timing. Column 3 is empty. The waste shows the 6 of Hearts. The bottom of column 7 is the 7 of Hearts. The bottom of column 1 is the second 6 of Hearts. The reactive move parks the waste 6-H in the empty. The right move lifts the column-1 6-H onto the 7-H first, then puts the waste 6-H onto the newly exposed bottom of column 1 if same-suit. Consolidating same-suit pairs first preserves the empty column and shortens the waste.
Example 2: hold the foundation. The Spade foundation is at 5-S. The bottom of column 4 is 6-S, column 8 is 7-S, column 2 is 8-S. The reactive move sends 6-S, 7-S, 8-S to the foundation in three plays. The right move lifts 6-S onto 7-S first, then checks what column 4 exposed. If a low Diamond or low Club appears, that move was worth more than three foundation promotions because it unblocked a different suit. Foundations should be the last beneficiary of any sequence, not the first.
Example 3: buried-Ace triage. Column 5 deal-order top to bottom: King of Diamonds, 9 of Clubs, 4 of Spades, Ace of Hearts. The Ace is three cards down. If the second Ace of Hearts sits on top of column 8, abandon the dig and promote that Ace. If the column-8 Ace is also buried, the dig becomes mandatory and every empty column should be reserved for the K-D until it is parked.
Two numbers anchor the discussion. The 3.69 percent figure has a stated sample size (a 182,919-game algorithmic test), making it the most defensible quantitative anchor. The 10 percent consensus from Morehead and Mott-Smith (1949), Wikipedia, the Solitaire Association, and Bicycle's rules is the most defensible expert human practical rate. The two reconcile if the algorithmic test ran fast solver play without deep search and skilled human play with undo squeezes more from borderline deals.
The skill sensitivity is unusual. In Klondike, the gap between novice and expert is smaller. In FreeCell, almost every deal is winnable so skill barely changes the rate (the Microsoft 32,000-deal set has only two confirmed unwinnable deals). Forty Thieves sits among the hardest classic patiences, in the same difficulty band as four-suit Spider but punishing a different skill: planning three to five moves ahead rather than visualizing long descending sequences.
Skill doubles the rate within winnable deals; it does nothing for deals the deck has already decided. The defensible expectation for disciplined play is 5 to 10 percent.
For more on win-rate methodology, see the Forty Thieves FAQ.
The strategy above lifts the win rate from random to disciplined; the rest is the deal. Try it on the live game with full move validation and unlimited undo.
Play Forty Thieves NowFor the rules in full, including the comparison with Klondike and FreeCell, see the Forty Thieves rules guide. For history, variants, and the most-asked questions, see the Forty Thieves FAQ.