Phase one is the game — phase two rewards or punishes how well you arranged the Zodiac in phase one.
Zodiac is a two-deck, two-phase patience game. Phase one places all 104 cards into the Zodiac’s twelve circular fan positions using Equator helper cards. Phase two builds eight foundations from those positioned cards. The game is usually won or lost in phase one; a well-organized Zodiac makes phase two flow naturally.
Last updated: June 2026
The two-phase structure
Most solitaire games have a single continuous objective. Zodiac is explicitly two-phase:
- Phase one (the Zodiac phase): All 104 cards from two decks are placed onto twelve fan positions arranged in a circular Zodiac layout. Equator cards serve as routing helpers that allow cards to be directed to specific fan positions.
- Phase two (the foundation phase): Cards are taken from the Zodiac fan positions and built onto eight foundations (two per suit), each building upward from Ace to King by suit.
The two phases have different rules and different priorities. Phase one is a placement optimization problem. Phase two is an access and sequencing problem. But critically: phase two’s difficulty is entirely determined by phase one’s quality.
What phase two needs from phase one
Foundation building requires cards in suit order: Ace first, then 2, then 3, up to King. With two decks, each suit has two Aces, two 2s, two 3s, and so on, all of which must be placed on two separate foundations in the correct order.
For phase two to proceed smoothly, the Zodiac fans must contain same-suit cards in roughly ascending order from their accessible positions. When the Hearts foundation is at 4 and needs 5♥ next, that 5♥ should be near the top of its Zodiac fan — not buried beneath ten other cards.
Suit mixing in Zodiac fans is the primary phase-two problem: a fan that alternates Hearts, Spades, Hearts, Clubs down its depth makes Hearts extraction require many intermediate moves to clear the non-Hearts cards in between.
The ideal phase-one outcome is twelve Zodiac fans where each fan holds cards primarily of one or two suits, with lower-rank cards positioned near the accessible top. This makes phase-two foundation extraction a simple matter of working each fan in order. A mixed fan requires complex multi-suit juggling in phase two.
Using Equator cards: the routing tool
Equator cards are the mechanism by which cards are directed to specific Zodiac fan positions during phase one. They act as a temporary holding row that lets you route incoming cards from stock to the Zodiac fans in a controlled order.
Effective Equator use involves:
- Reserving Equator slots for suit-organization moves. If a Hearts card arrives from stock and you want it in the Hearts-primary Zodiac fan, route it through the Equator position that feeds that fan before its slot is occupied by a different suit.
- Not filling all Equator positions with mismatched cards. An Equator full of mixed-suit cards with no clear routing path becomes a bottleneck. Keep at least one or two Equator slots open as routing buffers.
- Prioritizing Aces and low-rank cards through the Equator. Aces start foundations in phase two. Getting Aces and 2s into the most accessible Zodiac fan positions during phase one means they surface first in phase two when foundations are starting.
Phase-one fan assignment strategy
With twelve fan positions and four suits (each with two complete decks of 13 cards), the natural assignment is three fans per suit: three Zodiac fans primarily holding Hearts, three holding Spades, three holding Diamonds, three holding Clubs. This keeps suit concentration high.
Within each suit’s three fans, distribute by rank range:
- One fan for low ranks (Ace through 5 of that suit).
- One fan for mid ranks (6 through 9).
- One fan for high ranks (10 through King).
This rank-range distribution means phase two can advance each suit’s two foundations through their sequences without repeatedly returning to the same fan for scattered ranks.
The stock produces 7♥. The Hearts mid-rank fan (6-9♥) already holds 6♥ and 8♥. The Equator has a slot adjacent to the Hearts mid-rank fan. Route 7♥ through the Equator to the Hearts mid-rank fan. This keeps 6, 7, 8♥ together in one fan, making phase-two Hearts extraction at ranks 6-8 a simple sequence from one location.
If instead 7♥ were routed to a mixed fan for convenience, the Hearts mid-rank fan would later be missing 7♥, requiring a cross-fan move during phase two to find it. Phase-one convenience trades for phase-two complexity.
Phase-two execution: working the foundations
When phase two begins, eight foundations need to be built from Ace to King by suit. The sequencing depends entirely on what phase one produced:
- Start each suit’s foundations as soon as an Ace of that suit is accessible in its Zodiac fan. Both Aces of each suit must eventually start their respective foundations.
- Advance all eight foundations roughly in parallel. A foundation that races ahead while others stall can create cross-suit dependency problems when you need specific rank cards that are blocked by other suits’ Zodiac fan access.
- When a foundation needs the next card and it is buried in a Zodiac fan beneath other suits, clear those other suits by advancing their foundations first to access the needed card.
How Zodiac games fail to close
- Filling Zodiac fans without regard to suit concentration.A phase-one strategy of “fill whichever fan has space” produces chaotic fans where every suit is intermixed. Phase two then requires constant suit-sorting that often deadlocks.
- Exhausting Equator flexibility early by filling all slots with mismatched cards. A full Equator with no routing room forces subsequent stock cards directly into non-ideal fan positions.
- Ignoring rank distribution within a suit’s fans. Even if all Hearts cards are concentrated in three fans, a fan holding Hearts 2, 9, Ace, King, 5 in random order is harder to extract from than a fan holding 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in order.
- Starting phase two without assessing the Zodiac layout first. Before moving any card in phase two, review which fans hold which suits and ranks. Plan the foundation progression order based on what is most accessible, not suit alphabetical order.