Canfield Solitaire

The base rank is dealt

How to play Canfield Solitaire

Thirteen cards go into a face-down reserve with the top one turned up. Four more are dealt as single-card tableau columns, and one more goes onto the first foundation — and whatever that card happens to be becomes the base rank for all four foundations. The remaining thirty-four form the stock.

Foundations build up by exact suit from the base rank, wrapping past the king and continuing with the ace until each holds thirteen cards. The tableau builds down in alternating colours and wraps too, so a king can sit under an ace.

The reserve is the whole game. Only its top card is ever playable, and it is also what automatically fills any tableau column you manage to empty. Winning means getting all thirteen of those cards out — everything else is machinery for doing that.

Base rank rules

What the base rank permits and forbids

Foundations

Why the base rank is rarely an ace

Most solitaire games start their foundations at the ace. Canfield turns one card over and uses whatever it finds, so eleven or twelve deals out of thirteen you will be building from something awkward — a 6, a jack, a 4. Every foundation then runs thirteen cards from there, straight through the king and round to the ace.

Reserve discipline

Canfield Solitaire strategy

Judge every move by whether it shortens the reserve. That is the only scoreboard that matters. A move that sends a reserve card to a foundation is excellent, a move that empties a column so the reserve can drain into it is excellent, and almost everything else is a means to one of those two ends.

Clear columns deliberately. Because spaces refill from the reserve, emptying a tableau column is effectively a way to spend a reserve card without needing a foundation to be ready for it. With only four columns and one card in each at the start, this is far more achievable here than in a seven-column game.

Be cautious with the waste. Draw three means only every third card surfaces, and passes are unlimited, so the waste is forgiving — but a card you skip may take a full cycle to come back, and by then the position may have moved on. Take what you can use when it appears.

Watch the ranks just below your base. If the base is 8, the 7s are the last card each foundation needs, and a 7 buried under a long tableau run is a problem you should start solving early rather than discovering at the end.

Three ways the reserve drains

Where Canfield deals are lost

Building the tableau instead of draining the reserve

Every tableau move that does not shorten the reserve is, at best, neutral. The reserve is the only thing standing between you and a win, and it only shrinks two ways: onto a foundation, or into a tableau space. A tidy tableau with thirteen reserve cards left is a lost deal that has not admitted it yet.

Filling a space you did not want filled

Empty columns refill from the reserve automatically, which is usually exactly what you want. But it means you cannot open a column to park a specific card while the reserve still has cards in it — the reserve gets there first. Plan around that rather than being surprised by it.

Losing track of the draw-three rhythm

Only every third stock card reaches the top of the waste, and playing one shifts which cards surface next time. Passes are unlimited here, so this is recoverable — but cycling the whole stock without playing anything leaves the order identical and gets you nowhere.

The famous low odds

Is Canfield Solitaire winnable?

Not often. Canfield has a reputation as one of the hardest classic one-deck games, and it was reputedly named after a casino owner who sold the deck and paid out per card on the foundations — a bet that only works if the game very rarely comes out.

Unlimited stock passes make it more forgiving than the strictest published versions, and skill genuinely matters: playing for the reserve rather than for a tidy tableau is worth a great deal. But a deal that scatters the base rank badly can be beyond rescue. We do not quote a win rate, because Canfield versions differ on redeals, draw count and space rules, and every one of those moves the number.

Base-rank relatives

Canfield against the other reserve games

Whether the reserve can feed the tableau is the rule that decides how a reserve game feels. Canfield's can, which is why it flows where Terrace grinds.

If the thirteen-card reserve is what appeals but four columns feels cramped, Double Canfield plays the same game on two decks with considerably more room to manoeuvre.