Double Solitaire - Cards

What actually changes when you shuffle a second deck into a patience game?

Not simply "more cards". A hundred and four of them rewrite the arithmetic of the table. There are eight foundations rather than four, and two of every card, so the Ace you are waiting on is never the last one in existence. Then again, the King sitting on column seven has a twin somewhere too. Nine columns are dealt in a staircase, one card rising to nine, forty-five on the table and fifty-nine held back in the stock. That stock is the longest stretch of the game and usually the part that decides it.

The building rules will feel familiar

Tableau runs go down in alternating red and black. You can lift a whole run or split it and take part of it. Kings, and only Kings, move into an empty column. Any Ace opens any free foundation, which then climbs by suit to its own King. You win when all one hundred and four cards are home.

Two ways to turn the stock

Take one card at a time, or three at a time for a tighter game. In the standard mode you may keep circling the stock until the board genuinely stops, at a hundred points off the score every time round.

Vegas scoring, if you want the pressure

The deal starts you deep in the red and pays back per card promoted, with no second pass through the stock. It turns an unhurried two-deck board into something you have to be efficient about.

Everything else

Undo the last two hundred moves. Hints. A tutorial with the rules written out. Statistics: games played, wins, best times. Card backs and table colours. Works offline with no account and no sign-up. 33 languages.

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