Rules for Dutchess

Family: Klondike
Categories: Rewarding
Variants:
Also Known As: Glenwood

Dutchess is related to Klondike and Canfield, but allows more room for strategic thought. You’ll need both luck and skill! It was invented by Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith, the authors of the excellent and comprehensive The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games.

Layout

Deal three cards onto each of four reserve piles, all face up. Deal another four cards face up, one each onto four tableau piles. Between those two rows, leave four empty foundations. Keep the remaining cards in the deck, ready to deal onto a discard pile.

Play

On your first move, choose a top card from one of the reserves and move it to an empty foundation. The card you choose sets the rank that must be played first onto the other empty foundations. That is, if you first play an eight, you must also start the other foundations with eights. No other cards may be moved to the foundations until this first move is complete.

After the first move, the foundations build up in suit, with Ace going on King (unless an Ace was the first card played).

The tableaus build down alternating red and black. Top cards of reserves and the discard may be played onto tableaus. Full builds in the tableaus are available for building on other tableau piles; partial builds may not be moved. Empty tableaus can be filled only with a top card from a reserve, until the reserves are empty. After that, they may be filled from the discard pile.

Top cards of reserves, tableaus and the discard may be played onto the foundations.

Dealing

Click the deck to deal a card onto the discard pile. When the deck is empty, you may redeal by picking up the discard pile and turning it over to fill the deck. You may only redeal once, for a total of two trips through the deck.

Goal

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

Tips

Choose your first move (from reserve to foundation) carefully. Try to choose something that will let you start several foundations, and that will let you move as many reserve cards as possible.

Build the foundations evenly. If you play up a red 8 before you have found all the black sevens, you may find yourself unable to play one of those sevens later on.

Clear the reserves as early as you can. The big challenge in Dutchess is to clear the discard pile; if the reserves are empty you can move cards from the discard onto empty tableaus.

Empty tableaus are a good way to move reserve cards.