Play Forty Thieves Solitaire Online for Free

Forty Thieves is a Solitaire game that uses two decks or 104 cards. It’s also referred to as Napoleon at St. Helena, named after how Napoleon would play the game on the island of Saint Helena when he was exiled there.

The goal is to move all cards from the stock pile and tableau into 8 foundation piles by suit in ascending order.

There are three main areas in the game:

Tableau piles: This is the area where cards are placed face-up in 10 columns of 4 cards each, totaling 40 cards.

Stock pile: The remaining cards, or a total of 62 cards, are face-down in the stock pile.

Waste pile: Cards drawn from the stock pile that cannot be placed in the tableau go to the waste pile.

Foundation piles: These are the eight piles at the top of the game where cards are placed by suit in ascending order from Ace to King.

What our instructional video to learn how to play.

To win, follow these tips:

Create empty columns to move cards and unblock others.

If you have an empty column, try to place cards of higher ranks to help you create longer sequences in that column. Also, late in the game, consider moving cards from the stock pile into empty columns to get them in the tableau.

Immediately move Aces to the foundation.

The first visible sequence may not always be the best one. Plan out your moves to remove as many cards as possible from the tableau.

Because foundations are built from Ace to King, try to make low cards available so you can move them out of the tableau into the foundation.

Josephine Solitaire is similar, except you can move sequenced cards as a group, making the game easier.

The game is challenging with a low win rate. We looked at 182,919 random games played. Of those, 6,754 were won, or 3.69%

If you like Forty Thieves, you’ll also like: