What is Intrigue Solitaire?
Intrigue is a two-deck patience built around an unusual split of the pack. The eight Queens are not discarded as they are in its sister game Salic Law — instead they stay on the table as the immovable heads of eight columns. Everything else is sorted onto sixteen foundations that run in two opposite directions: down from the Fives and up from the Sixes.
The whole deck is dealt at once and only the top card of each column can move, so the order in which cards were buried during the deal is the puzzle you have to unpick. There is no stock to draw from and no redeal to bail you out.
Full rules
Two standard 52-card decks are combined into a 104-card pack — eight of every rank. The eight Queens become the bases of eight columns; the first Queen dealt opens column one and each subsequent Queen opens another, up to eight. The remaining 96 cards fill sixteen foundations.
Eight foundations are Five-piles. Each is opened by a Five and built downward, ignoring suit, in the wrap-around order 5 → 4 → 3 → 2 → A → K — the King lands on top of the Ace to finish the pile at six cards. The other eight foundations are Six-piles, each opened by a Six and built upward 6 → 7 → 8 → 9 → 10 → J, again six cards and again regardless of suit. Sixteen foundations of six cards is 96 cards, which with the eight Queen bases accounts for all 104.
During play only the exposed top of a column moves. It can go to a foundation it continues, or — the single tableau move — onto a vacant column, meaning one peeled down to its Queen. You win when all sixteen foundations are complete, which is the same as every column being reduced to just its Queen.
Where the difficulty comes from
Because the foundations split the ranks into two camps, every card you turn up belongs to exactly one staircase. A 2 only ever helps a Five-pile; a 10 only ever helps a Six-pile. That means the eight copies of each rank are a fixed, finite supply, and a foundation that needs a specific rank cannot borrow from the other camp.
With only eight columns and zero vacant ones at the start, your sole maneuvering tool is a column you manage to empty down to its Queen. Spend that vacancy on the wrong blocker and a needed low card can stay pinned forever, because nothing recycles back into play.
Intrigue is part of The Palace · Court games and is a variant of Salic Law.
More Court games games
- Salic Law — Queens removed; eight King columns and eight A-to-J foundations built regardless of suit, no stock.
- Glencoe — Suit-locked Intrigue: a Five or Six can only open a pile over a Queen of its own suit, then the body builds regardless of suit.
- Laggard Lady — Harder Intrigue: a Five or Six can only start a foundation while Queens showing exceed foundations started, so the deal buries more low cards.
Also try
- Emperor (Forty Thieves & two-deck builders) — Two-deck Forty Thieves relative with waste play.
- Milligan Cell (Miss Milligan & row dealers) — Four free cells add temporary storage to Miss Milligan’s eight columns.
- Royal Cotillion (Reserve builders) — A 4-column Ladies’ tableau that never refills, a 16-cell Lords’ grid that refills from waste only, and zero redeals.
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