Quarante Voleurs Solitaire

Quarante Voleurs, rules and strategy

A two-deck solitaire game: forty face-up cards in ten columns, a stock of 64 cards, and eight foundations to build from ace to king, one card at a time. This site explains the exact rules, strategy and winning games verified card by card. To play: Quarante Voleurs - Solitaire, on iPhone, iPad and Android.

Read the rulesDownload the app

Available on the App Store and on Google Play.

Quarante Voleurs on a phone held in landscape orientation, at the start of a game: ten columns of four face-up cards, eight foundations still empty, and a stock of 64 cards.

Quarante Voleurs at a glance

Quarante Voleurs is played alone with two decks shuffled together, making 104 cards. 40 cards form 10 columns of 4 cards, all face up. The remaining 64 stay face down in the stock: they are turned over one by one onto the waste, with no second pass through the stock.

In a column, a card is placed on the card of the same suit one rank higher: the 7 of spades on the 8 of spades. You can move only one card at a time. The goal is to build up the 8 foundations, two per suit, from ace to king. The rules explain each move in detail, and the strategy page explains how to approach the game.

A deal from the app

Here is the deal with code FT1-N-AAAAAAV, exactly as dealt by the app. Paste this code into the app to play it; a game won in 237 moves is detailed on the Examples page.

Stock: 64 cards; waste empty. foundation 1: empty, foundation 2: empty, foundation 3: empty, foundation 4: empty, foundation 5: empty, foundation 6: empty, foundation 7: empty, foundation 8: empty. column 1: ace of diamonds, 3 of spades, king of hearts, 2 of hearts; column 2: jack of clubs, 3 of hearts, 2 of spades, 9 of hearts; column 3: 9 of clubs, jack of hearts, ace of hearts, 8 of hearts; column 4: 8 of diamonds, 9 of diamonds, king of clubs, 7 of diamonds; column 5: 10 of diamonds, 9 of spades, ace of hearts, jack of spades; column 6: king of clubs, jack of spades, 8 of spades, queen of spades; column 7: 9 of diamonds, queen of hearts, 6 of diamonds, 4 of hearts; column 8: 9 of hearts, ace of spades, ace of clubs, 3 of hearts; column 9: 6 of clubs, 5 of spades, 7 of hearts, 4 of diamonds; column 10: 5 of diamonds, 9 of clubs, 2 of spades, 10 of clubs.

Diagram of deal FT1-N-AAAAAAV at the start: 10 columns of 4 face-up cards, empty foundations, 64 cards in the stock.

Where to start?

On phone and tablet

The app is played in landscape orientation. It gives each game a code so you can replay or share it, lets you undo the last 100 actions, and keeps statistics.

Quarante Voleurs on a phone in landscape orientation, with the dark theme, at the start of a game: the menu bar turns black, the felt stays green, with ten columns of four face-up cards and the stock.
Phone in landscape orientation, dark theme: the menu bar turns black.
Quarante Voleurs on a tablet in landscape orientation, at the start of a game: ten columns of four face-up cards, eight empty foundations and the stock.
Tablet, in landscape orientation.