Sultan

Sultan is the most ornamental layout in the catalogue: the King of Hearts enthroned at the centre, seven Kings and the Ace of Hearts arranged around him, and the aim of finishing with the Sultan ringed by eight Queens. It also goes by Sultan of Turkey and, less romantically, Emperor of Germany.

Mechanically it is austere. There is no tableau, no building between piles, and nothing may ever be placed on the central King. Cards come off the deck into a six-card divan and go up to a foundation or wait. Two redeals give you three passes in all, and the skill is entirely in divan management and in noticing which suit is falling behind before it is too late to help it.

Two decks, and nine cards are set out as foundations: the King of Hearts sits at the centre as the Sultan and never receives a card, surrounded by the other seven Kings and the Ace of Hearts. The Ace of Hearts builds upward two, three, four and so on; each King builds Ace, two, three in its own suit. A six-card reserve called the divan sits alongside and is refilled from the deck as you use it. There is no tableau building at all — cards go from the divan or the waste straight to a foundation, or nowhere. Two redeals are allowed. You win when all eight outer foundations are complete and the Sultan is surrounded by Queens.

With no tableau building, the only decision is whether to take a divan card now or wait, and the divan refills from the deck — so using a card is also a way of drawing a new one. That makes clearing the divan actively useful rather than merely tidy. Track which foundations are furthest behind, because the game is lost by one lagging suit rather than by a general shortage. The two redeals matter: work the first pass for whatever is easy and save real hope for the later passes, when the foundations are high enough that more of the deck is playable.