Agnes

Agnes — properly Agnes Sorel — deals a neat triangle of twenty-eight cards and then turns up a twenty-ninth that decides the whole game: whatever rank it is becomes the base of all four foundations, so every deal starts somewhere different.

The rule that gives it its character is same-colour packing. Not alternating red and black, but matching: black onto black, red onto red. And a group of cards only travels together if it shares a suit outright. Both restrictions cut hard, and with a single deal and no redeal, a skilled player wins about one game in six. Note that the Agnes Bernauer variant is a substantially different, easier game with a reserve and alternating colours — the two get confused constantly.

Twenty-eight cards are dealt face up in seven rows of descending length, making a right-angled triangle, and the twenty-ninth card is turned up as the master card — whatever rank it happens to be becomes the base rank for all four foundations. The tableau packs downward in the same colour, not alternating, and a packet of cards only moves as a unit if it shares a suit as well as a colour. When you stall, seven more cards are dealt onto the bottoms of the columns. There is only one deal, and a vacancy does not have to be filled.

Same-colour packing is more restrictive than alternating colours and much more restrictive than it sounds, because it halves your placements while the same-suit requirement for moving packets halves them again. Build within a suit wherever you can so your runs stay portable. Because there is only one deal and no redeal, the cards dealt onto the column bottoms are your last chance — tidy the tableau before triggering a deal, exactly as in Spider. The master card rank is set by the deal and not by you, so read it first and work out which cards are now near-useless. The article puts skilled play at around 1 in 6.