Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to win this difficult card game using no redeals from the stock (though you can configure unlimited redeals in the game preferences).
In Forty Thieves, careful planning comes into play. On the tableau, you build sequences by identical suit descending. The thing that makes thieves quite tricky is that you can only move the to card regardless of whether it's part of a valid sequence or not. Combine this with the fact that the default rules say that there are no redeals and you've got a game that you'll probably end up losing most of the time. You must like a challenge.
To play this game by hand, start by fully shuffling 2 decks of cards. You then will place 40 cards on the table. All 40 cards will be dealt face up. They will be placed in 10 columns with 4 cards each.
Unlike most solitaires, in thieves you may only move one card (the topmost on a stack) at any given time. Valid moves are to place a lower card onto a higher card of the same suit on the tableau (e.g. 7 of diamonds onto an 8 of diamonds), or to move a card to one of the foundation piles. Much like Klondike, foundation piles are built up (ascending order) from Ace to King by the same suit. Given that you are playing with 2 decks of cards, you will have 8 foundation piles in this game as opposed to Klondike's 4.
You win the game when you move every single card to the appropriate foundation pile.
When you have a blank column/pile on the tableau, you may move any card you want to it. However, since only the top most card is playable, it's often handy to move a King to a blank pile (assuming you have a King available to move). The reasoning behind this, is that you can then start building down from King to Ace on the tableau in that column. Of course, this only works out well for you when you end up with a foundation pile that you can start moving all of those cards to. For instance, if you've built down from King to 6 of spades and then you have a foundation pile that gets built up to the 5 of spades, you can now move every single one of those cards in the 6 to King stack (one at a time though), and then you have a free column to play with.
The Forty Thieves Card Game can be quite difficult when played with the default rules (i.e., no redeals). A combination of good luck and a decent amount of skill are needed to win this game. Feel free to change the number of redeals at any time (even in the middle of a game, if you end up getting stuck) to make this game more winnable.
We hope you enjoy playing!
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