Hard difficulty
Forty Thieves
Build strict same-suit sequences across ten columns dealt from two decks — one of the toughest classic patience games.
Also published as Napoleon at St Helena, Big Forty, Le Cadran, Roosevelt at San Juan.
- Two-Deck Games
- Four-Suit Games
- Hard Solitaire
- Long Games
- Mobile-Friendly Games
- Strategy Games
- Tableau Builders
- Foundation-Building Games
- Classic Solitaire
| Decks | 2 decks |
|---|---|
| Suits | 4 |
| Typical length | 25 min |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| How much skill matters | High |
| How much the shuffle matters | Low |
| Family | Standalone |
There is no playable version of Forty Thieves on this site yet — this page covers its rules and strategy. The game suits a touchscreen well, so it is a good candidate once a build exists.
About Forty Thieves
Forty Thieves is the classic two-deck patience with a reputation for difficulty, and it earns it honestly. Ten columns, 104 cards, every one face up, and rules tight enough that most deals will beat you: build down by suit only, move one card at a time, and get one pass through the stock.
It also carries more names than any other game in the catalogue. Depending on the book or the app you met it in, this same game is Napoleon at St Helena, Big Forty, Le Cadran, or Roosevelt at San Juan — the Napoleonic attribution being a nineteenth-century story that historians treat with scepticism. They are one game, and we list it once.
How to play
Two decks are dealt face up into ten columns of four, so the whole tableau is visible from the start. Columns build downward strictly by suit — a seven of hearts takes only the six of hearts — and eight foundations build each suit up from Ace to King. You may move only the top card of a column, never a sequence, and any card can go into a column you empty. The remaining cards go through the stock once, one at a time, with no redeal.
Strategy
Suit-strict building with single-card moves is an unforgiving combination: a card placed badly does not come back out easily, and you get one pass through the stock to fix it. Treat empty columns as the only real resource in the game and be slow to fill them, because any card can occupy one and the wrong card wastes it. Watch for cards you will need buried under higher cards of the same suit — that is the position that kills Forty Thieves deals, and it is visible from the first move if you look. Because everything is face up, this is a game you can genuinely plan rather than probe.
What works
- Everything is face up, so a loss is a planning failure rather than bad luck
- Genuinely deep — one of the most respected two-deck patience games
- Suit-strict building makes each decision matter
What to know
- Hard to win; most deals defeat most players
- Long — a full game runs well past twenty minutes
- Single-card moves make recovering from a mistake tedious
Frequently asked questions
- How many decks does Forty Thieves use?
- Forty Thieves is played with two standard decks shuffled together.
- Is Forty Thieves good for beginners?
- Forty Thieves is generally better suited to players who already know the basics of solitaire, as it involves more planning than a typical beginner game.
- Is Forty Thieves based more on luck or strategy?
- Forty Thieves rewards careful planning — skilled play meaningfully improves your odds of winning.