How to Play

An open solitaire where the four Aces sit as foundations and all other cards lie face up in eight rows, to be built ascending to the Kings.

Beleaguered Castle is an open solitaire, meaning every card is dealt face up at the start. The four Aces are pulled out and placed vertically in the centre as the foundations; the remaining 48 cards are dealt into eight rows of six, four rows on each side of the Aces. Each row's exposed card (the one on the end closest to the tableau edge) can be played to a foundation (building upward by suit) or onto the exposed card of any other row (building downward, any suit). Emptying a row opens a wildcard home for any card. There is no stock, no redeal, and no hidden information, so the game is a pure puzzle: with careful play roughly two deals in three are solvable.

Players

Solitaire for one player; the game is not typically played competitively but can be scored against a win/loss record.

Card Deck

• One standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
• Ranks for foundation building, low to high: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K.A♠2♠3♠4♠5♠6♠7♠8♠9♠10♠J♠Q♠K♠
• Ranks for row building, high to low: K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.K♠Q♠J♠10♠9♠8♠7♠6♠5♠4♠3♠2♠
• Suits matter only on the foundations (suit-matched ascending); within tableau rows, any suit can descend onto any suit.

Objective

Move all 52 cards into the four foundation piles, one per suit, each built ascending from Ace to King. The game is won when every foundation ends on a King and the tableau is empty.

Setup and Deal

1. Shuffle the 52-card deck.
2. Remove the four Aces and place them in a vertical column in the middle of the play area; these are the foundations, one per suit.
3. Deal the remaining 48 cards face up into eight rows of six cards each: four rows to the left of the Aces column, four rows to the right.
4. Rows overlap inward so only the outermost card of each row (the end away from the foundations) is considered exposed and playable.

Gameplay

1. Play to foundation: Move the exposed end card of any row onto its matching-suit foundation if it is exactly one rank above the top card currently on that foundation (for example, the 2♠ goes onto the A♠).2♠A♠
2. Play between rows: Move the exposed end card of one row onto the exposed end card of another row if the moving card is exactly one rank lower than the destination card. Suit does not matter for row building.
3. Fill an empty row: If a row becomes empty (every card has been played off), you may place any exposed end card from elsewhere into it, starting a new row with that one card.
4. One card at a time: Only single cards may move; sequences built in rows cannot be relocated together.
5. No stock, no redeal: All 48 tableau cards are dealt at the start and there is no recycling of any pile. Once you run out of legal moves, the game is over.

Winning and Losing

• Win: All four foundation piles reach King, meaning every card has been played onto the correct foundation.
• Loss: No legal move remains and at least one foundation is still incomplete. Some deals are provably unsolvable.
• Win rate: With perfect play the win rate is roughly 65 to 70 percent of randomly dealt games, one of the highest among skill-based solitaires; casual play brings this down to 30 to 40 percent.

Common Variations

• Streets and Alleys: Identical layout and rules, but the Aces are not removed in advance; they must be uncovered during play and used as foundations once free. Substantially harder because the foundation spots start buried.
• Citadel: Aces are removed as before, but during the deal any card that matches the next foundation target may be placed directly to its foundation instead of the tableau row. Easier than the standard form.
• Fortress: Row building may go either up or down, with suit-matching required in rows. Changes the feel of the game toward careful suit management.
• Sham Battle: A German variant of Streets and Alleys with slightly different row lengths (seven rows of six or six rows of seven), preserving the core mechanic.
• Selective Castle: The solver arranges the 48 cards by hand during the deal, choosing which card goes where, turning the game into a chess-like puzzle; usually played only with prearranged tough deals.

Tips and Strategy

• Plan for the 2s first. After the Aces are placed, the 2s are the most immediately useful cards, because placing a 2 to foundation unblocks a 3 and so on. Identify where each 2 sits and make its row's path clear first.
• Protect low cards. A 4 or 5 buried under a 10 or J is useless until the face cards are moved; avoid piling high cards onto short rows whose exposed end is a low card.
• Use row emptying as your superpower. The first empty row is the single most valuable move in a game, because it gives you a free slot for any card you need to displace later.
• Avoid symmetric moves. Moving a card from row A to row B and later from B back to A wastes tempo; every move should enable a foundation play or open a new empty row.
• When stuck, trace blockers. Pick a foundation that is stalled and follow the cards it needs; if every blocker needs another blocker moved first, the game is often lost and a restart is fairer than continued shuffling.

Glossary

• Foundation: One of the four Ace-to-King piles in the centre of the layout.A♠K♠
• Tableau row: One of the eight rows of six cards radiating from the centre.
• Exposed card: The outermost card of a row, the only one immediately playable.
• Open solitaire: A solitaire with no hidden cards; Beleaguered Castle is one of the canonical examples.
• Blocker: A high card that buries low cards still needed for a foundation.
• Empty row: A cleared tableau row that can hold any single exposed card; the most valuable temporary storage in the game.