Rules for Busy Aces

Family: Forty Thieves
Categories: Large, Long, Two-Deck, Rewarding
Variants: Fortune's Favor
Also Known As:

Fans of Forty Thieves who would like to win more often may enjoy Busy Aces. The rules are the same, but the layout offers easier access to cards. The two keys to success are knowing how to transfer builds by clever use of empty tableaus, and knowing when not to make an obvious play because it might block a more important play later.

For another easier variant of Forty Thieves, try Thirty Thieves, a one-deck variation designed expressly for Solitaire Till Dawn.

Layout

Shuffle two decks and lay out one face-up card in each of 12 tableau piles. Keep the remaining cards in your hand. There are also eight foundation piles and a discard pile, which start out empty.

Play

Top cards of tableaus and the discard pile are available. The tableaus build down in suit. Any available card may be played to an empty tableau. The foundations build up in suit from the Ace to the King. Whenever you wish, deal a new card from the hand onto the discard pile.

Goal

The goal is to move all the cards onto the foundations.

Tips

As in all games of this type, empty piles are of great importance. Use them to move builds or partial builds from one tableau to another. The more empty piles you have, the longer are the builds you can move.

In general, try to play only low-ranked cards from the hand at first, and let higher cards sit in the discard pile.

Remember that in a two-deck game, every card is doubled. Don’t play a card from the discard pile if you can play its twin from the tableau, because it’s important to create as many empty tableau piles as possible.

Late in the game, use empty piles to reduce the size of the discard pile.

As a shortcut Solitaire Till Dawn will let you move full or partial builds provided you have enough empty piles available to have accomplished the same move one card at a time.