The lid comes off slowly

Casket Solitaire

Thirteen jewels lie face down beneath a lid of five cards, and the only way to reach them is to play the lid away one card at a time. Every card you draw from the stock has to be placed before you may draw the next.

A lid over thirteen jewels
Three waste piles
Place before you draw
Two decks

Foundations0/104

Jewels13

Lid5/5

Stock78

Waste0

Moves0

Foundations

Clear the lid to release the jewels.

Stock and waste

No card drawn

Draw one card, then place it before drawing again.

The lid

Jewels

Jewels empty

The casket

Jewels, lid and wastes

Casket Solitaire rules

Worth printing for the lid rule, which behaves differently in the first half of the game and the second.

Casket Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Decks	Two standard decks — 104 cards.
The jewels	Thirteen cards face down, with only the top one showing.
The lid	Five face-up cards sitting above the jewels.
The casket	Eight tableau piles of one card each.
Stock	The remaining seventy-eight cards, plus three waste piles.
Moving cards
Casket piles	Build down in suit, one card at a time.
Foundations	Eight, built up in suit from the ace.
The lid	As a lid space empties it is refilled from the jewels automatically.
Using a lid space	You may place a card into an empty lid space only once the jewels are exhausted.
The stock
Drawing	One card at a time.
The rule	A drawn card must be placed before you may draw again.
Where it can go	A foundation, a casket pile, an eligible lid space, or one of the three waste piles.
Waste piles	Three of them, each accepting any card. Only the top of each is playable.

Thirteen jewels

How to play Casket Solitaire

The layout is a picture of its name. Thirteen jewels sit face down in the middle, only the top one visible. Five lid cards lie above them, face up. Eight casket piles of a single card each sit below, and eight foundations wait to be built from the aces.

Casket piles build down in suit. Foundations build up in suit. Cards reach them from the lid, the casket piles, the three waste piles, or the card you have just drawn.

The drawing rule is strict: turn one card, and place it somewhere before turning another. With seventy-eight cards in the stock and only three waste piles to absorb the awkward ones, that rule is what gives the game its shape.

A rule with two halves

The lid is not yours until the jewels are gone

Play a lid card away and the space does not stay open — a jewel turns over and fills it automatically. That is how the thirteen face-down cards come into play, and for most of the game it is the only way they do.

Once all thirteen jewels have been drawn up into the lid, the behaviour changes: an empty lid space stays empty, and you may put a card of your own choosing into it. Five free cells arrive at exactly the moment the reserve stops feeding you. Until then, an empty lid space is a conveyor belt, not a cupboard.

Emptying a lid space does two opposite things depending on when you do it. Early on it is how you dig the thirteen jewels out, since each one only surfaces when the space above it clears. Later, once all thirteen have come through, the same action gives you a free cell. The whole arc of a Casket game is the transition between those two phases.

Placing the draw

Where a drawn card is allowed to land

Legal and illegal Casket moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A casket pile shows the 9♠. You play the 8♠ on it.	Legal	Casket piles build down in suit.
A casket pile shows the 9♠. You play the 8♣ on it.	Illegal	Black is not enough — the suits must match.
A ♦ foundation shows the 4. You play the 5♦.	Legal	Foundations climb in suit from the ace.
A lid space empties while jewels remain. You place a card in it.	Illegal	While jewels remain, empty lid spaces refill from them.
The jewels are gone. A lid space is empty. You place a card there.	Legal	Once the jewels are exhausted the lid becomes usable storage.
You draw a card and leave it while you draw another.	Illegal	Each drawn card must be placed before the next is turned.
You place an awkward drawn card on a waste pile.	Legal	That is what the three waste piles are for.

Opening the casket

Casket Solitaire strategy

Clear lid cards ahead of everything else. Each one you play brings a jewel up, and thirteen face-down cards is a lot of the deck to leave unseen.

Give the three waste piles jobs. High cards on one, middling on another, and keep the third as shallow as you can — it is the pile you will want to reach into.

Think before drawing, not after. The drawn card must go somewhere, so the question to ask is where it will go, before you turn it over and find out you have no good answer.

Get the aces up quickly. Eight foundations from two decks means low cards are wanted twice over, and a two buried in a waste pile is a foundation stalled.

Where it seizes up

How a Casket board seizes up

Treating the lid as storage from the start

For most of the game the five lid spaces are not yours — they refill from the jewels the moment they empty. They only become free cells once all thirteen jewels have been drawn out, which is usually late. Planning around lid storage before then is planning around something you do not have.

Filling all three waste piles with high cards

Three waste piles is your only relief when a drawn card fits nowhere, and only the top of each is available. Three kings sitting on top of three waste piles is a board with no outlet at all — spread awkward cards deliberately rather than dropping them on whichever pile is nearest.

Working the lid without clearing the jewels

Clearing lid cards is how the jewels come out, and the jewels are thirteen face-down cards you cannot otherwise reach. Playing lid cards to foundations is progress twice over: it advances a suit and it turns over another jewel.

Two-deck chances

Is Casket Solitaire winnable?

Not often. Strict same-suit packing on eight short piles, thirteen hidden cards, and a place-before-you-draw rule with only three waste piles is a demanding combination.

The game is at its most winnable in the late phase, once the jewels are out and the lid has turned into five free cells — the difficulty is surviving long enough to get there. We do not publish a win rate: for a game with this many moving parts, a borrowed figure would not mean much.

This version

Thirteen jewels, a five-card lid, three wastes

Two decks: thirteen face-down jewels, five face-up lid cards, eight casket piles of one.
Eight foundations built up in suit from the ace.
Casket piles build down in suit, one card at a time.
Emptied lid spaces refill from the jewels until the jewels run out.
After that, empty lid spaces may be used freely.
Draw one card at a time and place it before drawing again; three waste piles.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score.

Room to manoeuvre

Two-deck games and where you can put things

What separates these four is not the packing rule but the outlets — how many places an unwanted card can go while you wait for something better.

Casket compared with Algerian, Forty Thieves, and Strategy
Game	Reserve	Tableau	Outlets	The unusual rule
Casket	13 jewels under a 5-card lid	8 piles, down in suit	Three waste piles	Lid spaces lock until the jewels are gone
Algerian	6 piles of 4	8 depots, up or down in suit	None	Empty reserves lock until the stock ends
Forty Thieves	None	10 columns, down in suit	One waste pile	A single pass through the stock
Strategy	None	None	Eight waste piles	Suits ignored entirely

Algerian makes the same design choice from the other direction: it also withholds its reserve spaces until a condition is met, and for the same reason — to stop you using storage before you have earned it.

Explore

More solitaire games

Two-deck builders and another game about choosing which pile receives a card.

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