Diplomat

Diplomat is the friendliest two-deck game here. Eight rows of four either side of the foundations, building down with suit ignored, spaces that accept any card, and about two wins in every three.

Its shape borrows from Beleaguered Castle and its play from Forty Thieves, but without either game's severity — the rows are short so nothing is deeply buried, and the loose building rule means most cards have somewhere to go. The one real pressure is that the stock passes once, so the discipline is keeping space free for whatever the draw hands you. A good place to go if the two-deck games have been beating you.

Two decks, but only 32 cards go out at the start: eight short rows of four, arranged as two blocks either side of a central foundation space. Rows build down with suit ignored, foundations build up by suit to King, and a space that opens up will take any available card. You move one card at a time. The rest of the deck is dealt one card at a time to a waste pile whose top card remains playable, and the stock passes only once.

Short rows of four and suit-agnostic building make this unusually forgiving — nothing is buried deeply and almost any card will go somewhere. The constraint is the single pass through the stock, so the priority is having somewhere to put each card as it arrives rather than optimising the tableau. Keep at least one space open when you start working the stock; a space accepts any card and is the difference between a playable draw and a dead one. At 2 in 3 this is among the most winnable games in the catalogue, which makes it a good two-deck game to start with.