Hard difficulty
Four Corners
Only the cornerstone piles may feed any foundation — every other pile is tied to the one in its own row.
Also published as Les Quatre Coins, Cornerstones, Corner Patience.
- Two-Deck Games
- Four-Suit Games
- Hard Solitaire
- Long Games
- Mobile-Friendly Games
- Tableau Builders
- Foundation-Building Games
- Patience Classics
| Decks | 2 decks |
|---|---|
| Suits | 4 |
| Typical length | 18 min |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| How much skill matters | High |
| How much the shuffle matters | Medium |
| Family | Standalone |
There is no playable version of Four Corners 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 Four Corners
Four Corners — also published as Les Quatre Coins, Cornerstones and Corner Patience — is a two-deck game built on a positional restriction rather than a building one. Twelve piles in two columns, eight foundations down the middle formed from an Ace and a King of each suit, climbing and descending toward each other.
The twist is where a card sits. From a cornerstone pile it can go to any foundation; from anywhere else it can only go to the foundation in its own row. That turns an otherwise ordinary two-deck patience into a game about position, where moving a card into the right pile is often more valuable than moving it onto a foundation.
How to play
Two decks dealt into two columns of six piles, with the foundations between them. An Ace and a King of each suit are moved to the middle as they appear, giving eight foundations: the Aces build up in suit, the Kings build down. The rule that gives the game its name is positional. A card sitting in one of the cornerstone piles can go onto any foundation at all; a card in any other pile can only go onto the foundation in its own row. So where a card is matters as much as what it is.
Strategy
The cornerstones are worth far more than the other piles, because only they can reach every foundation — so getting useful cards into a cornerstone position, and clearing the cornerstones so they keep cycling, is the central task. For the other piles, look along the row: a card is only ever going to one place, so a pile whose row-foundation is stalled is a pile that is doing nothing. With eight foundations building in both directions, most ranks are wanted somewhere, but the positional rule means 'wanted' and 'reachable' are different questions.
What works
- The cornerstone rule is a genuinely unusual positional mechanic
- Eight foundations building both up and down keep most ranks in play
- Rewards thinking about position rather than just sequence
What to know
- Non-cornerstone piles are tied to a single foundation, which strands cards
- A stalled row-foundation makes a whole pile useless
- Two decks and twelve piles make a large layout
Frequently asked questions
- How many decks does Four Corners use?
- Four Corners is played with two standard decks shuffled together.
- Is Four Corners good for beginners?
- Four Corners is generally better suited to players who already know the basics of solitaire, as it involves more planning than a typical beginner game.
- Is Four Corners based more on luck or strategy?
- Four Corners rewards careful planning — skilled play meaningfully improves your odds of winning.