Hard difficulty
Salic Law
Queens are discarded and the eight Kings become column bases, with Aces building up to Jacks in the middle.
Also published as Salic Law Patience.
| Decks | 2 decks |
|---|---|
| Suits | 4 |
| Typical length | 12 min |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| How much skill matters | Low |
| How much the shuffle matters | High |
| Family | Standalone |
There is no playable version of Salic Law 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 Salic Law
Salic Law is a two-deck curiosity named for the medieval rule barring women from inheriting a throne — so the Queens are thrown out of the deck before play begins, and the Kings preside over the layout as column bases. It is the rare patience game whose theme is legible in its mechanics.
As a game it is thin by design. Cards cannot be built on each other, so there is no tableau to manage and no sequences to plan; you take what the columns offer and feed the foundations up to the Jacks. That makes it a fast, low-effort game that lives mostly on its premise, and a poor choice if you want something to think about.
How to play
Two decks are used with all eight Queens removed first. A King is laid down and cards are dealt onto it until the next King appears, which starts a new column, and so on until all eight Kings are out and the cards are gone — leaving eight columns of wildly uneven length. Any Ace that turns up goes to the foundations, which build upward to Jack regardless of suit. Tableau cards cannot be built on one another at all; only the top card of a column is available, and a column reduced to its King counts as a vacancy that any card can fill. You win when every foundation is topped by a Jack and the eight Kings sit exposed.
Strategy
There is very little to decide here. With no tableau building, the only real choices are which available card to send to a foundation when more than one will go, and when to use a King vacancy — and the theme of the game, that the Queens are excluded from the succession, is more memorable than its tactics. Where judgement helps is the vacancies: parking a card that blocks a long column is worth more than parking one from a column already nearly clear. Beyond that, the deal decides it.
What works
- A memorable premise that is actually reflected in the rules
- Very quick to learn — there is almost nothing to learn
- Plays fast with no long deliberation
What to know
- Almost no meaningful decisions; the deal largely decides the outcome
- No tableau building at all, which makes it feel static
- Needs two decks for a game with little depth to show for it
Frequently asked questions
- How many decks does Salic Law use?
- Salic Law is played with two standard decks shuffled together.
- Is Salic Law good for beginners?
- Salic Law is generally better suited to players who already know the basics of solitaire, as it involves more planning than a typical beginner game.
- Is Salic Law based more on luck or strategy?
- Salic Law is largely determined by how the cards fall — there's limited room for strategy to change the outcome.