No redeals and King-only empty fans — every King placement is a permanent structural commitment.

How The Fan differs from La Belle Lucie

La Belle Lucie: seventeen fans of three, same-suit downward building, empty fans cannot be refilled, up to two redeals. The Fan: same layout, same-suit downward building, empty fans can be filled by Kings (only Kings), and no redeals.

The trade-off is explicit: The Fan removes the redeal escape valve and replaces it with King-to-empty mechanics. In La Belle Lucie, a bad layout can be reshuffled. In The Fan, you must solve the deal as given — but you have a tool La Belle Lucie players never get: the ability to intentionally open a fan slot, choose its suit by placing a King there, and then build a downward sequence in that suit from the King.

Full rules

The 52-card deck is dealt into seventeen fans of three cards and one fan of one card. Only the top card of each fan is movable. Top cards may move to a foundation (Ace to King by suit) or to another fan whose top card is one rank higher in the same suit.

When a fan becomes completely empty, a King may be placed there. The King then becomes the top of that fan and can accept Queens of the same suit downward, and so on. There are no redeals. Win when all 52 cards reach the four foundations.

What King placement commits you to

When a King fills an empty fan, that fan is now “owned” by that King’s suit. The only cards that can enter the fan going forward are lower ranks in the same suit, building downward from the King: Queen of the same suit, then Jack, then Ten, and so on. The King itself cannot move (no card of rank 14 exists), so the fan will hold that King permanently until all lower-suit cards have been played to foundation from it.

An empty fan before a King is placed is pure routing flexibility: any single card can go there regardless of suit. Once a King occupies it, that flexibility is replaced by a specific suit commitment. The empty-to-King transition should happen when:

1. You have identified a suit whose sequence you want to build in that location, and the sequence will be productive soon (not hypothetically in the distant future).
2. The alternative uses of the empty space (as a routing slot for non-King cards) are less valuable than starting a King-headed sequence there.
3. You are not creating a King sequence that blocks a different fan’s needed movement because the suit you’re committing to already has its lower cards buried in that different fan.

The no-redeal constraint: all decisions are permanent

Without redeals, every fan-to-fan move is irreversible in a meaningful sense: the card that was exposed beneath the moved card is now the new fan top, and the sequence of buried cards below both fans is now fixed until foundation plays or further fan moves change them. There is no shuffle to randomize a bad layout.

This makes The Fan’s planning horizon longer than La Belle Lucie’s. Each move should be traced forward at least two or three steps: “If I move this card here, what becomes the top of its old fan, and what can that new top do?”

In La Belle Lucie, a bad sequence of moves can be survived by redeal. In The Fan, the same bad sequence creates a compounding structural problem that cannot be undone.

Foundation pacing: advance early and often

Because redeals cannot rescue the game, the safest stabilizing force is foundation progress. Each card placed on a foundation is permanently off the board, reducing tableau complexity and freeing the fan space it occupied.

Any accessible Ace should go to its foundation immediately. Any card that is the next needed rank on a foundation should be played before making speculative fan-to-fan moves. Building foundation momentum from the early game creates the breathing room needed to manage the later-game King decisions without pressure.

Which King to place and when

When multiple Kings are available (some on fan tops, some buried) and an empty fan slot exists, choosing which King to place involves:

• Suit with the most buried sequence members nearby. A King whose Queen, Jack, and Ten are all accessible or near-accessible in the current layout is the highest-value King to place. It will receive sequences quickly.
• Suit with the fewest cards already on its foundation. A suit that is stalled at 4 on its foundation needs more infrastructure built to advance it. A King-headed sequence in that suit can organize the remaining cards.
• Avoid placing a King whose suit members are all buried deep in other fans.A King placed when its Queen is four levels deep in a different fan will sit unused while the empty slot’s routing value was lost.

What ends a Fan game

• Placing a King immediately when a fan empties. The empty space has routing value that the King replaces with suit commitment. Wait until the open space has been used for its routing purpose, or until you have a clear King-sequence plan.
• Placing the “wrong” King — one whose suit members are inaccessible. A King of a suit where the Queen and Jack are both deeply buried is a low-value King. The fan slot will sit King-headed but inactive for many turns.
• Making fan-to-fan moves two or three steps deep without checking what they reveal.Without redeals, every reveal is permanent. Moving cards “just to rearrange” without checking the next two exposed tops is a common path to structural deadlock.
• Deferring foundation plays to make fan moves first. Foundation plays are always safe and always progress. Fan moves can create new problems. Play foundations first when available.