One row, squeezed

Accordion Solitaire

The whole deck goes down in a single line, every card its own pile. A pile can jump one place left or three places left when the top cards share a rank or a suit — and the row closes up behind it. Getting down to one pile is genuinely rare.

Fifty-two piles in a row
Move one or three left
Match rank or suit
Finish with one pile

Piles52

Largest1

Cards52

Moves0

Move rule

Choose a pile, then move it one pile left or three piles left if the top cards share rank or suit.

Move matching piles left to compress the deck.

Fifty-two piles in a row

Accordion Solitaire rules

One of the shortest rulesets in patience. Almost everything interesting comes from the one-or-three restriction.

Accordion Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Deck	One standard 52-card deck.
The row	All fifty-two cards laid out in a single line, each one its own pile of one.
Stock	None. Everything is on the table from the first move.
Moving
The two jumps	A pile may move onto the pile immediately to its left, or onto the pile three places to its left. Nothing else.
The match	The top cards of the two piles must share a rank or share a suit.
What moves	The whole pile, however many cards it has grown to. Only its top card is ever tested.
Closing up	When a pile moves, the row closes the gap and everything to its right shifts left.
Direction	Leftwards only. Nothing ever moves right.
Winning
Win condition	The entire deck compressed into a single pile.
A good result	Anything under about five piles. One is rare.
Losing	No pile can legally move onto the pile one or three to its left.

One left or three left

How to play Accordion Solitaire

Deal the entire deck face up in one long line. Each card starts as a pile of one, and the object is to squeeze that line together until, ideally, there is a single pile of fifty-two.

A pile may move in exactly two ways: onto the pile immediately to its left, or onto the pile three places to its left. In both cases the top cards must share a rank or a suit. When a pile lands, the row closes up and everything to its right slides along.

That closing-up is what makes it a game rather than a chore. Every move changes which piles are one and three apart, so the row you are looking at after a move is not the row you planned against.

One and three, never two. The gap in the middle is the whole puzzle. A pile two places away is unreachable until something else moves and the row shifts — which is why Accordion rewards making a move for its effect on distances rather than for the match itself.

Jump rules

Which jumps Accordion allows

Legal and illegal Accordion moves
The move	Verdict	Why
Pile 8 onto pile 7, both showing queens.	Legal	One place left, matching rank.
Pile 9 onto pile 6, both showing hearts.	Legal	Three places left, matching suit.
Pile 9 onto pile 7.	Illegal	Two places left is not a legal jump. Only one or three.
Pile 6 onto pile 7.	Illegal	Movement is leftwards only.
A five-card pile onto the pile three left, top cards both clubs.	Legal	The whole pile travels. Only the visible top card is tested.
Pile 5 onto pile 4, a 9 onto a 4.	Illegal	Different rank and different suit. There has to be a match.

Set your expectations

Finishing with one pile is genuinely uncommon

Accordion's other names give the game away. It has been published as Idle Year, Methuselah and Tower of Babel, all of which are jokes about how long you will be at it and how rarely it comes out.

Reaching a single pile is a real achievement rather than the expected outcome. Getting down to two or three is a good deal; five or six is an ordinary one. Play it as a puzzle you are trying to beat your own record at rather than one you expect to solve.

Jump discipline

Accordion Solitaire strategy

Prefer the three-left jump. It removes a pile from further away and pulls the row together more usefully than a one-left move, which merely merges neighbours. When both are available, the three is usually the better move — and it is the one players miss, because the piles are not next to each other.

Think about distances, not matches. Every move re-indexes the row, so the real question is what will sit one and three apart afterwards. A match that is available now will often still be available in two moves; a three-jump you break may never come back.

Work the left end first when you can. Moves near the start of the row shift everything to their right, which is a large, hard-to-predict change. Moves near the right end disturb very little, so they are safer when you are trying to preserve a setup.

Watch what you are covering. Only the top card of a pile can ever match again, so a move that buries a well-connected card — an ace, or a card of a suit you have plenty of — can quietly cost you several future moves.

Three ways the pile stops shrinking

Where Accordion deals stall

Taking every legal move as it appears

Accordion offers a lot of moves early and almost none late. Each one closes the row and changes which piles sit one and three apart, so a move that gains nothing now can destroy a three-jump you had lined up. The first ten moves matter more than the next thirty.

Preferring the one-left move by habit

The three-left jump is the more valuable of the two, because it pulls a distant pile in and shortens the row by a place that a one-left move cannot reach. When both are available, check what the three-jump does first — it is easy to overlook because the piles are not touching.

Burying a useful top card

Moving a pile covers whatever was underneath, and only top cards can ever be matched again. A queen that was your link between two halves of the row disappears the moment something lands on it.

Accordion's real odds

Is Accordion Solitaire winnable?

Rarely, in the sense of reaching a single pile. Very often, in the sense of getting most of the way there. It is one of the few solitaire games better judged on how far you got than on whether you finished.

Skill matters more than the reputation suggests. Because everything is visible and there is no stock, a careful player who thinks about distances rather than grabbing matches will consistently end with far fewer piles than one who does not. We do not publish a win rate: some versions allow moves of one place only, and others allow jumps in both directions, and neither describes this page.

This version

One or three, leftwards only

One deck, fifty-two single-card piles in a row, nothing hidden.
A pile may move one place left or three places left, and nowhere else.
The top cards of the two piles must share a rank or a suit.
The whole pile moves; only its top card is tested.
The row closes up after every move.
You win by reducing the deck to a single pile.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score. There is no stock and no redeal, so every deal is decided entirely by the order the cards came out and the moves you choose.

Among the short games

Accordion among the short games

These four all finish quickly and all clear a board rather than building foundations. What separates them is how far a card can reach.

Accordion compared with Golf, Monte Carlo, and Clock Patience
Game	Board	Match rule	How far a card reaches	Goal
Accordion	One row of 52 piles	Match rank or suit	One or three places left	Compress to a single pile
Golf	Seven open columns	One rank up or down	Any column onto the waste	Clear the tableau
Monte Carlo	5×5 grid	Same rank	Any touching card, diagonals included	Remove all 26 pairs
Clock Patience	Thirteen piles on a dial	Rank chooses the next pile	Forced — no choice at all	Reveal all 52 cards

Accordion is the most restrictive of the four and the only one where position alone can make a perfectly good match illegal. If that appeals, Monte Carlo is the natural next stop — a similar puzzle in two dimensions, with a board that also rearranges itself.

Explore

More solitaire games

Try another short game, or one where the geometry works in two dimensions.

Tested rules

How this solitaire game is checked

Game logic is implemented and tested by Brian Hamilton, then reviewed by Karan Hamilton for rule clarity, player flow, and correction notes.

How we make and test solitaire games