Strict where it counts

Diplomat Solitaire

The rows will take anything one rank lower, and an empty row will take anything at all. Every bit of strictness in this game is saved for the eight foundations, which want suited runs from the aces.

Eight rows of four
Down by rank, any suit
Spaces take anything
One stock pass

Foundations0/104

Stock72

Waste0

Tableau32

Moves0

Build by rank in the rows and by suit on the foundations.

Eight foundations

Stock and waste

Waste empty

Draw one card to the waste. The stock has one pass only.

Eight rows of four

Diplomat Solitaire rules

Two sentences do it: rows ignore suit entirely, foundations insist on it.

Diplomat Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Decks	Two standard decks — 104 cards.
Tableau	Eight rows of four cards, thirty-two in all, every one face up.
Stock	The remaining seventy-two cards, drawn one at a time.
Foundations	Eight, two per suit, built up from the ace.
Moving cards
On a row	One rank lower. Suit and colour are both ignored.
Group moves	None. Only the exposed card of a row moves.
An empty row	Accepts any card at all.
To a foundation	Ace first, then up in suit — the only place suit matters.
The stock
Drawing	One card at a time to the waste.
Passes	One. There is no redeal.
Waste	Only the top card is playable, to a row or a foundation.

Two decks, one pass

How to play Diplomat Solitaire

Thirty-two cards go out as eight rows of four, arranged four to a side with the foundations and stock down the middle. Everything is face up. The other seventy-two cards form a stock you draw once, one card at a time.

Rows build downward by rank and nothing else — a 9 takes any 8. An empty row takes any card at all. Only the exposed card of a row can move, and never as part of a group.

The eight foundations are the strict part: up in suit from the aces, two per suit. Everything the tableau lets you get away with, the foundations eventually make you pay for.

No two-deck tableau can be more permissive than this one. Every card of the rank above will take a card, which is the maximum available. That makes the opening feel effortless and moves the whole difficulty to the back half: eight suited foundations, no group moves, and one pass through seventy-two cards.

Suits, sometimes

Where the suit rule actually applies

Legal and illegal Diplomat moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A row shows the 9♠. You play the 8♥ on it.	Legal	Down by rank. Nothing about suit is checked.
A row shows the 9♠. You play the 8♠ on it.	Legal	Equally fine — matching suits are neither required nor forbidden.
A row shows the 9♠. You play the 10♥ on it.	Illegal	Rows build downward only.
A row empties. You move a 6♦ into it.	Legal	An empty row takes any card.
A ♥ foundation shows the 4. You play the 5♥.	Legal	Foundations build up in suit from the ace.
A ♥ foundation shows the 4. You play the 5♦.	Illegal	Foundations are the one place suit is enforced.
You move a 9♠ with the 8♥ under it as a pair.	Illegal	There are no group moves in this game.

The trap in a generous rule

Everything fits, so everything gets buried

A tableau that accepts almost any card sounds like a gift, and for the first thirty draws it is. The problem is that it never refuses a bad move. In Forty Thieves the strict suit rule stops you from stacking cards you will regret; Diplomat will let you do it every time.

With no group moves and a single stock pass, every card you place is a card you will have to move again individually. The skill is not finding a legal move — there are always several — but declining the ones that only look like progress.

Playing the rows

Diplomat Solitaire strategy

Ask what a move uncovers, not whether it fits. Almost everything fits. A placement that exposes nothing and feeds no foundation is usually a placement that costs you later.

Get the aces and twos up on sight. Eight foundations from two decks means low cards are wanted twice over, and burying one under loose packing is expensive to undo.

Keep a row empty when you can. It is the only way to take a badly stacked row apart, and because empty rows accept anything, it is the most useful space in the game.

Watch the stock count. Seventy-two cards go past once. By the halfway mark you should know which suits are moving and which are stuck.

How it still closes

How a generous board still closes

Building tidy runs because everything fits

With suit ignored, almost every card can go somewhere, and it is easy to assemble a neat 10-9-8-7-6 down a row. Each of those cards has to leave individually before you can reach what is underneath, and each needs its own destination. Tidy is not the same as useful here.

Burying low cards under the loose packing

The foundations are strict about suit, so a 2♦ is the only card that will start the diamond climb from an ace. Drop it under three other cards in a row and you have to unpick all three to get it back — with no group moves and a single stock pass.

Filling an empty row with the first card to hand

Empty rows take anything, which makes them the most flexible thing on the board and the easiest to squander. A row is how you dismantle a badly stacked one; spending it on a card that already had a home gives that up for nothing.

A generous game's odds

Is Diplomat Solitaire winnable?

More often than the stricter two-deck games, though less often than the loose tableau suggests. The rows will always give you something to do; whether it helps is another matter.

Deals are usually lost in the last third, when the stock is spent and two or three suits have their low cards scattered under rows that cannot be unpicked one card at a time. We do not publish a win rate: it depends heavily on whether a version allows a redeal, and this one does not.

This version

Eight rows of four, one pass, no group moves

Two decks: eight rows of four cards, all face up.
Rows build down by rank with suit ignored entirely.
Empty rows accept any card.
One card moves at a time; there are no group moves.
Eight foundations built up in suit from the ace.
Draw one card at a time, one pass, no redeal.

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

Loosest to strictest

The two-deck scale, from loosest to strictest

Four games with the same decks, the same one-card moves and the same suited foundations. They differ almost entirely in how many cards their tableau will accept.

Diplomat compared with Indian, Maria, and Forty Thieves
Game	Tableau packing	Cards that accept a given card	Empty spaces	Stock
Diplomat	Down, any suit	8 of 8	Any card	72, one pass
Indian	Down, any suit except its own	6 of 8	Any card	74, one pass
Maria	Down, alternating colour	4 of 8	Any card	68, one pass
Forty Thieves	Down in the same suit	2 of 8	Any card	64, one pass

Indian is the interesting neighbour: nearly as loose, but it bans the one thing Diplomat allows freely — a card sitting on its own suit.

Explore

More solitaire games

The same two decks at three tighter settings of the suit rule.