Brought to you by Semicolon Software, makers of Solitaire Till Dawn.
[Before you start] [The Strategy] [Summary]
Here's a tough game, and one that often leaves beginners at a complete loss -- it may seem like there's absolutely nothing you can do to win this game. But that isn't true at all; Forty Thieves is a fascinating game with a subtle strategy. Learn it well, and you can win 10% or more of your games.
You'll need a copy of the sample game; click here to download it. You'll also need Solitaire Till Dawn to play the sample game; click here to download it. Make sure you have version 2.1 or later because earlier versions don't have a move counter. The latest release is version 3.0. The upgrade is free to registered owners of any earlier version.
If you don't know how to play Forty Thieves, see the Rules for Forty Thieves before going any further. If you don't know how to use the Undo and Redo commands to watch a sample game being played, see Using the Sample Games. If you see a word that's unfamiliar to you, you can probably click it to see its definition. Now you're ready to start!
Tip #1: Plan ahead
Planning ahead is the key to Forty Thieves. We have several
good moves available, right at the start of the game. First, we
can immediately play up the A
. Next the 3 goes onto the 4; if and when a 2 shows
up, both of these cards will follow it up onto the Ace. Beneath
them is a 6, which with luck will go soon after, and that
in turn will make the A
available.
Under the 3 we found the 6
. Moving
the 5 to it reveals the J; moving
that to the Q reveals a 5. And
now we have a run of available Diamonds, from the 3 up to the
6, in piles 8 and 10 at the
right of the layout. All
we need is the 2 to get rid of them all -- but
we'll have to wait for that. No 2's are in the layout,
so they're both in the hand;
they'll show up later, and we'll have to hope it won't take too
long. (And another bonus -- when the 5 goes,
we'll have a K to play the Q onto.)
Next we'll move the 9
onto the 10. When playing
this game, we saw a different move first: one of the 3's can be
moved to the 4. But moving the 9 first reveals a 5, and then
we can move the 4 to the 5, and after that a 3 to a 4. Plan ahead!
Tip #2: Make low-ranking cards available
At move 6 we want to move a 3 onto the 4. We have
two 3's, side by side, to choose from; we choose the
one on the right because it makes a 2 available.
Because the foundations
build up from Aces to Kings,
we'll want to play low cards before high ones, so we should concentrate
on making low cards available.
Tip #3: Empty piles are good
Below the 2 are a J and a 10, and
we notice that once the 2 is gone, we can move both of these cards
to other piles, leaving pile 3 empty. This would be very valuable.
Because any available card can be played to an empty pile, having
an empty pile or two gives us many more opportunities to move
cards around and organize the tableaus.
Later on, when we actually have an empty pile to work with, we'll
see some concrete examples of this. For now, we'll just say that
"empty piles are good" and that's enough reason for
us to plan ahead to try to empty one out.
We're now at move 7, and it's time to deal
because we have no more tableaumoves available. The card we deal
is the 10, which is useless because we can't play it to
either the tableaus or the foundations yet. This is typical: most
of the cards you deal will just sit in the discard
pile for a long time, and the discard pile will stretch longer
and longer as you play. If you're lucky (and clever), it will
eventually start shrinking again as you near the end of the game;
but until then you'll just have to be patient. Keep dealing until
you find a useful card.
At move 13, we get a piece of luck: we've dealt a 2! Now
we can play it and all those other Diamonds up to the foundations.
This reveals the A, and that and the 2 can also
go up. All of this in turn has revealed a bunch of Spades, so
we can now make some tableau moves to get them together. We are
lucky to be able to put them all on a K that has
nothing underneath it; since it will probably take a while to
get all these high-ranking Spades up to the foundations, it would
be unfortunate to have other cards trapped beneath them.
Tip #4: Use empty piles to reveal cards
At move 23, after collecting all the Spades, we have another
opportunity. The 10, as we planned earlier, can
now be moved, leaving an empty pile. We said before that this
was good, and now we can see why. In pile 6 is a Q covering
a 2, a bad situation: a high card covering a low card.
Let's move the Queen to the empty pile, then the 2 onto the 3.
Now we still have an empty pile (a different one), but the 2
has become available and it and the 3 can be played to the foundations
as soon as we find an Ace.
Tip #5: Conserve empty piles
If we hadn't been able to move the 2 to make
a new empty pile, we probably would have left the Queen and 2
alone. It's usually best to use empty piles in a way that doesn't
use them up. That way you can use them again and again, instead
of just once. Sometimes you just have to use up an empty pile,
but you shouldn't do it unless your need is great.
Tip #6: Conserve singletons
What's a "singleton"? It's a card that's not in suit and sequence. At move
25, we had two 3's that we could put the 2
on. The one at the left was not part of a sequence of Clubs; the
one at the right was part of a 5-4-3 build. Because the rules
allow moving only one card at a time, it will be difficult for
us to move the 5-4-3 to another tableau pile (although not impossible,
as we'll see later). Adding the 2 therefore doesn't make it much
worse. But if we put the two on top of the singleton 3 at the
left, then it too would be part of a build and would become difficult
to move. By leaving it alone, we preserve our ability to move
it elsewhere.
Don't take this rule too literally. Of course it's important to collect cards into builds in suit. You'll spend most of your time and effort doing exactly that, and you'll have to cover up quite a few singletons to get your builds started. But when you have a choice between covering a singleton or covering a build, choose to cover the build.
Now that we have an empty pile, it's a good time to look over the tableaus to see whether there are any other useful moves we can make. Unfortunately there aren't any right now, so we're back to dealing. Watch the next few moves on your own; they don't illustrate any new principles, so we won't comment on most of them.
At move 39 we have dealt an A, so now we can clear
out those Clubs we've been building.
Tip #7: Don't block your split builds
At move 50 we have a decision to make. We've dealt a 7,
and we could play it onto the 8 in pile 8. But look
out -- we have a 7-to-4 build of Spades in pile 1. In effect,
we have a big King-to-4 build in Spades, split between two different
piles. When we find a 2-3 to play to the foundations,
we'll be able to play all the rest of these Spades up as well.
But if we now play the 7 from the discard onto the 8, then we
won't have a perfect "split build" any more; there'll
be two 7's instead of one. When we later start playing to the
foundations we'll have to choose which 7 to send up.
This means that we won't be able to get at the cards beneath
the Spades builds in both piles; one pile will still have a 7
blocking the rest of the cards in its pile. But if we leave that
7 in the discard pile, then we will be able to clear out both
builds later on. Which is better? Clearing the Spades from pile
1 will leave a nearly empty pile, and the low 4 that's
left may be easy to remove as well. And clearing pile 8 will leave
a completely empty pile. Two empty piles -- that would be great!
And leaving one 7 in the discard pile for now doesn't seem too
bad -- perhaps later on we'll be able to play it onto the other
8, which is still in the hand and hasn't been dealt
yet. For these reasons, let's leave the 7 in the discard pile,
and just keep dealing.
At move 55, we deal a K. Put it in the empty pile, and
move the Q onto it, so we still have an empty pile.
At move 78, we deal an 8. Play it on the 9,
move the 10 to the empty pile, then move the revealed 7
onto the 8. We still have an empty pile!
At move 84, we deal a 4. We are tempted to play it onto
the foundations, but wait -- remember that split build of Spades?
We're still waiting to deal the 2. When we do, we can
get one of the 3's under the 7 (by using the empty
pile to move the 7), and then play up all the Spades. That will
reveal the 4 under pile 1, and we can then play that to the
foundations and get our empty pile back. Which way should we go?
We won't get an extra empty pile by waiting, because we must give
our current one up in order to get the 3. And the
other 3 is already in the discard pile, back a ways. Too
bad -- but it looks like we'll be a little better off abandoning
our plan to get two empty piles from the split build of Spades.
Let's go ahead play the 4 from the discards now. And right
after, we can move the J to the empty pile, and play up
the revealed 5, and we still come out of it with an empty pile.
We get the 2 in the very next deal (at move
88), so let's go ahead and use it. When the dust settles, we haven't
done as well as we'd hoped; we still only have one empty pile.
But we now have six piles with only one card each, so our prospects
for making more empty piles are looking pretty good; and we did
get a lot of cards onto the foundations.
So we keep dealing, and sure enough at move 106 we've dealt
a 2. It goes to the foundations along with the 3, and now we've got two empty piles. We don't have
a use for them right now, but we will later.
Tip #8: Move builds using empty piles
At move 110 we deal a J, which we play onto the Queen.
And now see what we can do with two empty piles! We have a 10-7
build, four cards' worth, that we'd like to get onto the Jack.
With two piles we can do it -- watch: The 7 goes to an empty pile,
then the 8 goes to the other empty pile; now we temporarily have
no empty piles left. Next the 7 goes onto the 8, regaining an
empty pile. The 9 goes there, the 10 goes onto the Jack -- and
now we can start peeling the 9, 8, and 7 back onto the 10. When
we're done (at move 120) we've moved the entire 10-7 build, and
we still have both of our empty piles!
At move 123, we've dealt an 8 that lets us play
up that Queen-to-9 build. Then we move the J to an empty
pile, put the 2 on the 3, and move the 10-9
onto the Jack, using an empty pile to help move the two-card build.
We finish at move 133 with three empty piles. Progress!
At move 136 we get the A, and play it and
the 2-3 to the foundations. Four empty piles! Then the 6
appears, and takes the 7 to the foundations, and we have
five empty piles.
Tip #9: Late in the game, use empty piles to reduce the discard pile
Right about now is the time to start looking seriously at the discard pile. We really need to start reducing it; too many valuable (i.e. low-ranked) cards are buried in it. Here's the tip: When we have enough empty piles, and the remaining tableau piles have only a few cards in them (especially if they hold only a few buried valuable cards), then we may want to start using the empty piles to hold cards from the discard pile.
We're at move 142. We've thought this out ahead to make sure it will work, but you can just watch the action unfold for now. We start bringing down cards from the discard pile, and putting them into empty spaces if they won't fit anywhere else. As we do so, we keep our eyes open for opportunities to conserve empty piles by making builds.
We are able to reduce the discard pile by quite a bit, but
at move 165 we stop, leaving ourselves one remaining empty pile
"just in case," and continue dealing. Later, as we manage
to create more empty piles again, we'll continue pulling down
cards from the discard pile, whenever it seems advantageous to
do so. For example, almost right away (move 166) we deal a 4,
clear out another pile, and use it to pull down a couple more
cards.
At move 185, we deal a 9. We play it on
the 10, and can then bring the 8-7 over to it as well.
Notice that although the rules say you can move only one card
at a time, the 8-7 moved together. This isn't a strategy tip,
just a shortcut in the Solitaire Till Dawn program: Solitaire
Till Dawn will let you move a build as a single unit, provided
there are enough empty spaces that you could have accomplished
the move one card at a time. The program is a bit conservative
about this, so sometimes you'll find you have to move the cards
separately anyway.
At move 187, we spot another opportunity. We can move the K-to-10
to an empty pile, and rearrange some other stuff to regain the
empty pile. This reveals the cards that were under those Hearts.
Finally, at move 192, we start bringing cards down from the discard pile again. We're getting a bit desperate: there are only two cards left to deal, and we still have a long way to go. We need to get at the low-ranked cards in the discard pile! Fortunately, from here on out it's easy -- just bring 'em down, and play 'em up. At move 245 (phew!) we're done, and we have our win.
We've seen nine tips for success at Forty Thieves. Here they are again:
Plan ahead
Perhaps this should be the last tip instead of the first, because you can't plan ahead unless you know what to plan for! But on every move, think about what effect your move will have on the future. Which cards will be covered, which revealed, and of those, which will you need soon?
Make low-ranking cards available
Low-ranking cards will go to the foundations before high-ranking ones. Don't let low cards stay covered by high cards if you can help it.
Empty piles are good
Always try to create as many as you can.
Use empty piles to reveal cards
You can put any available card into an empty pile, and that lets you get at the cards underneath the one you've moved.
Conserve empty piles
Don't fill empty piles unless you really need to. Try to use them in ways that let you finish an operation with (at least!) as many empty piles as you started with.
Conserve singletons
If there are two places in the tableau where you can play a given card, and one place is already part of an in suit build while the other isn't, then play on the build. Singletons (cards not part of a build) are easier to move than builds, so the cards beneath them are easier to reach: try to keep it that way.
Don't block your split builds
An in suit, in-sequence run of cards may be split across two piles. If so, think hard before adding cards to the top part of the split build. That will make it impossible to play both parts of the build up to the foundations all at once, which is a capability you may wish to preserve.
Move builds using empty piles
Although the rules allow moving only one card at a time, builds can be transferred if you have empty piles to use as waystations. The more empty piles, the longer the build that you can move. (Solitaire Till Dawn understands this and will sometimes let you drag a build as a single move, just as a shortcut.)
Late in the game, use empty piles to reduce the discard pile
Inevitably, the discard pile gets longer and longer during the first and middle parts of the game. If the game goes well, later on you'll have lots of empty piles and the remaining tableau piles will be well-organized. That's the time to start thinking about reducing the discard pile by moving cards into the empty piles.
Forty Thieves isn't easy. Even with these tips and a lot of practice, you'll lose most of your games. But when you win one (and you will!) it's incredibly satisfying. Take a bite out of crime -- defeat the Forty Thieves!
If you have any new tips for our collection, please write to us! We'll add your tips to this page and sign your name to them.