Forty Thieves
Two decks. Build in suit. One card at a time. No second chances.
Two decks. Build in suit. One card at a time. No second chances.
Forty Thieves is the one that beats you, and it does so entirely honestly. Two full decks, ten columns of four, eight foundations — and rules with all the mercy sanded off. You build down in suit, not in alternating colours. You move one card at a time, never a stack. And when the stock is finished, it is finished: there is no redeal.
Legend attaches it to Napoleon on St Helena, which is almost certainly nonsense but suits the game's temperament perfectly. Fewer than one deal in ten will fall, even played well. Winning one is an event.
Three rules stack on top of each other. Building in suit rather than alternating colour roughly halves the number of legal moves at any moment. Moving one card at a time means you can never reorganise the board in a single gesture. And no redeal means every card you turn from the stock is a card you will never see again. Together they make a game that punishes a mistake made forty moves ago.
Under 10% for most players, and even strong play doesn't lift it dramatically. If you're used to winning most of your Klondike games, expect the humility. That's the game.
Yes, and it's brutal in its simplicity: guard the empty columns. An empty column takes any card, which is the only flexibility the game gives you, and spending one carelessly is usually the move you'll regret. Also, don't rush the stock. Every turn from it is irreversible, so extract every possible move from the table first.
Same engine, different rulebooks. They're all free, and none of them want your email.