How to Play

A pair-matching one-deck patience played on a 5 by 5 grid: adjacent same-rank cards are discarded in pairs, remaining cards slide to fill gaps, and the stock refills the grid until the deck is cleared.

Monte Carlo (also called Good Neighbours or Weddings) is a one-deck pair-matching patience. Twenty-five cards sit in a 5 by 5 grid; any two equal-rank cards that are adjacent (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) can be discarded together. After every discard wave, the remaining cards slide together toward the top-left and fresh stock cards flow in to refill the grid to 25. The puzzle ends when every card is paired off (a win) or no adjacent pair remains and the stock is empty (a block).

Players

Single-player patience. Competitive races are easy to run: two players each deal their own 5 by 5 and the first to clear the deck wins.

Card Deck

• One standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
• Suits are irrelevant; only ranks matter.
• Every card has exactly one matching partner somewhere in the deck among the three other cards of the same rank; a pair of Fives might be with or with .5♠5♦5♠5♥

Objective

Remove every one of the 52 cards by pairing adjacent same-rank cards in the grid. The game is won when the entire deck is discarded and no cards remain in grid or stock; it is lost when no more legal pairs are adjacent and the stock has been exhausted.

Setup and Deal

1. Shuffle the full 52-card pack and set it face down as the stock.
2. Deal 25 cards face up into a 5 by 5 grid, filling row by row from the top-left (row 1 left to right, then row 2, and so on).
3. Keep the remaining 27 cards face down as the stock.

Gameplay

1. Step 1 (find a pair): Look over the grid for any two cards of the same rank that share a side or a corner. The eight neighbours of any cell (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) are eligible; wrap-around is not allowed.
2. Step 2 (remove the pair): Discard both cards face down to a side pile. You may remove as many pairs as you like in the same wave, but each card can only be part of one pair per wave.
3. Step 3 (consolidate): Once no more adjacent pairs can be found, slide the remaining cards up and to the left: working through the grid row by row from the top-left, move each remaining card to the first empty position encountered. The effect is as if the cards flow up the columns and to the left of the grid.
4. Step 4 (refill): Deal new cards face up from the stock to the empty grid positions, filling again from left to right and top to bottom until the grid is back to 25 cards (or the stock runs out).
5. Step 5 (repeat): Return to step 1. The game continues until the grid is empty and the stock is exhausted (a win), or no legal pair remains and the stock is empty (a loss).

Scoring

• Binary scoring: the game is either won (all 52 cards discarded) or lost.
• Progress score (for session play): count removed cards. A loss with 40 of 52 cards discarded is a close loss.
• Time score (for digital or race play): how quickly you clear the deck, usually counted in seconds or by the number of consolidations needed.

Winning

You win when every one of the 52 cards has been paired and discarded, leaving an empty grid and an empty stock. You lose when the grid still holds cards, no adjacent same-rank pair exists, and the stock is empty. In session play, record wins as 1 point and losses as 0; the first player to a chosen win total (10 wins is common) wins the match.

Common Variations

• Monte Carlo Thirteens (Simple Pairs): Remove pairs that sum to 13 (A+Q, 2+J, 3+10, 4+9, 5+8, 6+7) and discard Kings singly, ignoring rank-match pairs.
• Fourteens: Remove pairs that sum to 14 within a row or column (not necessarily adjacent). Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13, Ace = 1.
• Aces Square: Pairs match by suit (instead of rank) inside the same row or column.
• Good Neighbours / Weddings: Other common names for the same core game; no mechanical change.
• Double Monte Carlo: Deal a 7 by 7 grid (49 cards) from two shuffled packs for a longer, more tactical variant.

Tips and Strategy

• Never grab the first pair you see. Scan the whole grid and pick pairs that free up cards buried in the bottom-right corner, since consolidation pulls those cards toward the top-left where more neighbours appear.
• Leave a matching pair on purpose if removing them would isolate another card with no partners among the incoming stock. A temporarily held pair is sometimes the only bridge to later matches.
• Count which ranks have already lost both copies (fully cleared ranks); any remaining copy of those ranks is dead until it falls next to a new partner from the stock.
• Resist the urge to clear a rank fully when its surviving partner in the stock can only pair with a card arriving much later. Hold removed piles tidy so you can re-scan cleared ranks quickly.

Glossary

• Adjacent: Sharing a side or a corner with another grid cell (one of the eight neighbours).
• Consolidate: Slide remaining cards up and left after a discard wave to fill the gaps.
• Pair: Two cards of equal rank occupying adjacent grid cells.
• Stock: The face-down remainder of the 52-card deck used to refill the grid.
• Block: A game state with no legal pair and no stock left; a loss.