Classic variant
All 52 cards are dealt face-up into 13 columns of 4. Before play begins, any Kings are automatically sunk to the bottom of their column. Only the top card of each column may move — onto a card one rank higher (suit and color don't matter) or to the foundations. Empty columns cannot be refilled. Build all four foundations from Ace to King to win.
Click a top card to select it, then click a destination to move it.
Solitaire.City includes classic builders, pairing games, and larger two-deck patience variants, so you can jump between quick rounds and longer strategic layouts.
Baker’s Dozen is a fully open solitaire game in the same family as Beleaguered Castle and FreeCell — all cards visible from move one, no stock, no hidden information. The defining feature is a rule applied during the deal: any Kings found in the tableau are automatically moved to the bottom of their column. This single adjustment ensures Kings never block Aces or low cards from being accessible, which meaningfully raises the win rate compared to a fully random open layout.
The game is named for the thirteen columns of four cards each (4 × 13 = 52).
The 52-card deck is dealt into thirteen columns of four face-up cards each. Before play begins, any Kings in the tableau are moved to the bottom of their respective column. Only the top card of each column is available to play.
A top card moves to another column if the destination top card is exactly one rank higher — suit is irrelevant. A card moves to the foundation if it continues its suit sequence (Aces go up, then 2s, 3s… Kings). Empty columns cannot be refilled. There is no stock and no redeal. Win when all 52 cards reach the four foundations.
Beleaguered Castle pre-places all four Aces on foundations before dealing, removing them from the tableau entirely. Baker’s Dozen deals all 52 cards including Aces, and moves Kings to column bottoms instead. Both use the same rank-only (any suit) tableau build rule and forbid refilling empty columns.
The King-relocation rule in Baker’s Dozen changes the access problem significantly: instead of planning around buried 2s (Beleaguered Castle’s primary challenge), you plan around buried Aces and the path to freeing them — since Kings are already out of the way but other cards may block Ace access.
Locate all Aces before making any move. Trace which cards block each Ace and determine whether those blockers have valid destinations. Because empty columns cannot be refilled, clearing a column prematurely — before you have a plan for using the empty space — is a common mistake.
Rank-only building (any suit on any suit one rank higher) gives more legal destinations per card than Klondike, but the lack of color alternation means same-suit chains form inadvertently, creating foundation ordering dependencies you must track.