Escudo de Lascuarenta.es con los cuatro palos de la baraja españolaLascuarenta.es (The Forty)

Learn to play

Solitario tutorial: practise play by play

Solitaire tutorial

Solitaire is played alone with the Spanish deck, in three variants: Klondike, Spider and Pyramid. Practise three moves, review the key points of each variant, and sit down at the table.

See Solitario tablesFull rules
Step 1 of 3

Klondike: alternating colour

In a column, the five of cups is showing. Which card can you place on top of it?

Column

Available cards

What do you do?

Correct: 0

Key points

The essentials del Solitario

Order of the run

With a Spanish deck the run goes Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Jack, Knight and King. There are no eights or nines: the Jack takes that spot.

Klondike

Seven columns and a stock with three passes. Descending runs alternating colour are built — coins and cups act as red, swords and clubs as black — and all four suits are built up from Ace to King. Only a King can start an empty column.

Spider

Two decks, ten columns and eighty cards. Descending runs of any suit are ordered, but only cards of the same suit move together. You can't deal onto empty columns. Every completed King-to-Ace run is removed; you need to complete eight.

Pyramid of thirteen

Twenty-eight cards in a pyramid with the 48-card long deck (with eights and nines) and a single pass through the stock: free pairs adding up to thirteen are removed, with the Ace worth 1, two through nine their number, Jack 10, Knight 11 and King 12.

Undo and records

You can undo up to five moves per game. At the end, your time, moves and games completed are saved on your device: solitaire doesn't affect the ranking or the Sotas.

Questions

Questions about this tutorial

Origins

History of the deck

Origin of the deck

The 40-card Spanish deck arrived on the peninsula in the 14th century and established its four suits —coins, cups, swords, and clubs— as symbols of medieval social classes.

The Tute

Heir to the Central European Marriage, Tute popularized the 20 and 40 declarations and became the quintessential table and tavern game.

La Cuatrola

A pairs variant from the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is played only with the 20 scoring cards (aces, 3s, kings, knights, and jacks): all are dealt, 5 per player, and the trump card is one of the dealer's cards, which they show to the table. Whoever dares to 'sing Cuatrola' commits to winning all five tricks alone.

Sota de Oros de una baraja de Lascuarenta.esSota de Copas de una baraja de Lascuarenta.es
Sota de Espadas de una baraja de Lascuarenta.esSota de Bastos de una baraja de Lascuarenta.es
The sotas (jacks) of the four suits in the Baraja Antigua, in the style of early 20th-century decks.

Full rules

Rules of every game, in writing

Check the deck and its values, the deal, how a round unfolds, scoring, strategy, common mistakes, regional variants and table vocabulary.

Rules of CuatrolaPartnerships, forcing suit and five tricks that countRules of TuteForty cards, calls made out loudRules of GuiñoteCalling the forty, swapping the seven, forced playRules of ChinchónSets, runs and the art of discardingRules of BriscaThree cards, the trump card and constant drawingRules of MentirosoBluffs, face-down cards and accusationsRules of MusPartnerships, signals and going all inRules of PumbaSnap twos, jacks as wildcards, fast discardingRules of La EscobaAdding up to fifteen and sweeping the tableRules of SolitarioYou against the deal: Klondike, Spider and Pyramid