Five piles is not many

Four Seasons Solitaire

A cross of five single cards, four foundations in the corners, and forty-six cards still to come. The cross takes anything one rank lower and wraps around the ace — except in the one case where the rules step in and stop it.

A five-pile cross
Foundations in the corners
Tableau wraps, mostly
One stock pass

Found.1/52

Cross5

Stock46

Waste0

Moves0

Build the foundations from the base rank.

Stock and waste

Waste empty

Draw one card, or fill an empty cross space from the stock.

Base rank

A cross and four corners

Four Seasons Solitaire rules

Worth printing for the wrap rule and its single exception, which most descriptions omit.

Four Seasons Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Deck	One standard 52-card deck.
The cross	Five piles of one card, laid out as a cross.
The corners	Four foundations, one seeded before play.
The base rank	Set by that seeded card. All four foundations start there.
Stock	The remaining forty-six cards, drawn one at a time.
The foundations
Building	Up in suit from the base rank, wrapping past the king to the ace.
Finishing	Thirteen cards each, ending one rank below the base.
Starting the other three	They open with a card of the base rank in a suit not yet used.
The cross
Building	Down by rank. Suit is ignored entirely.
Wrapping	The rank order loops, so a king may be placed on an ace.
The exception	If the base rank is an ace, that one wrap is blocked.
An empty pile	Accepts any card, from the waste or the stock.
Group moves	None. One card at a time.

Five piles, one pass

How to play Four Seasons Solitaire

Five cards go out as a cross — one in the centre and one at each arm. A sixth goes to a corner as the first foundation, and its rank becomes the base rank for all four. The other forty-six cards form the stock.

Foundations climb in suit from the base rank, wrapping past the king back through the ace, and finish thirteen cards later on the rank just below where they began. The other three open when a base-rank card of an unused suit appears.

The cross builds downward by rank with suit ignored, and an empty cross pile takes any card. With only five piles and no group moves, where you put things is the whole game.

A small board where nearly every move is legal. Five piles that ignore suit means most cards have several homes, and the game never tells you which is correct. That combination — plenty of legal moves, very little room — is what makes Four Seasons much harder than its tiny layout suggests.

The one exception

Where the wrap applies and where it does not

Legal and illegal Four Seasons moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A cross pile shows the 8♠. You play the 7♥ on it.	Legal	Down by rank, and suit is not consulted.
A cross pile shows the A♦. You play the K♣ on it — base rank is a 6.	Legal	The cross wraps, so a king follows an ace.
A cross pile shows the A♦. You play the K♣ on it — base rank is an ace.	Illegal	That single wrap is blocked when the base rank is the ace.
A cross pile shows the 8♠. You play the 9♥ on it.	Illegal	The cross builds downward only.
The base rank is 6. A ♥ foundation is empty. You play the 6♥.	Legal	New foundations open on the base rank in an unused suit.
A ♥ foundation began on the 6 and shows the K. You play the A♥.	Legal	Foundations wrap past the king and carry on.
A cross pile empties. You fill it from the stock.	Legal	Empty cross piles take any card, from the waste or the stock.

The rule nobody mentions

The cross wraps — unless the base rank is an ace

Ordinarily the cross treats the ranks as a loop, so a king may be placed on an ace just as a seven goes on an eight. That keeps a five-pile board from seizing up the moment an ace lands on top of a pile.

There is one exception, and it exists for a reason. If the dealt base rank happens to be the ace, then every foundation needs aces to start and kings to finish — and letting kings pile on to aces in the cross would bury exactly the cards the game is asking for. In that one case the wrap is switched off, and an ace on a cross pile is a genuine dead end.

Playing a small board

Four Seasons Solitaire strategy

Read the base rank before your first move. Everything follows from it: which cards start foundations, which finish them, and whether the cross wrap is available at all.

Keep one cross pile short. Five piles is very little, and a pile you can empty is the only flexible slot you will have.

Spread ranks across the piles. Two piles topped by the same rank is two piles wanting the same card, which halves your real options without looking like it.

Open all four foundations early. Three of them wait on base-rank cards in unused suits, and until they start, a third of the deck has nowhere to go.

How five piles close

How a five-pile board closes

Treating the cross as five separate piles

Five piles is very little room, and any card may go on any pile one rank higher. That means every placement is a choice between five equally legal homes, and choosing the one that buries a useful card is the standard way to lose. Look at all five tops before placing.

Hunting for aces

The base rank is set by the seeded card, so a foundation starting at the eight runs 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A, 2 and finishes on the seven. Aces are middling cards here unless the base rank happens to be one.

Filling empty cross piles too eagerly

An empty pile takes anything, which makes it the only genuine relief in a five-pile game. Spending it on a card that already had a home turns the game's one flexible slot into another fixed one.

Chances in five piles

Is Four Seasons Solitaire winnable?

Not often. Five piles and a single pass through forty-six cards is a very narrow game, and the loose packing rule means the board fills with legal but useless placements if you are not careful.

Deals usually end with two or three foundations half built and a cross where every top card is wanted by nothing. We do not publish a win rate: it depends heavily on the dealt base rank, which the player has no say in.

This version

Five cross piles, four corners, one pass

One deck: five cross piles of a single card and four corner foundations.
The sixth card dealt sets the base rank for all four foundations.
Foundations climb in suit from that rank, wrapping past the king.
Cross piles build down by rank with suit ignored, and the ranks wrap.
The ace-to-king wrap is blocked when the base rank is an ace.
Empty cross piles take any card. Draw one at a time, one pass, no redeal.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score. Also published as Corner Card and Vanishing Cross.

Base-rank games

Base-rank games and how much room they give

Four games where a dealt card decides where every foundation starts. What separates them is the size of the tableau and how forgiving its packing rule is.

Four Seasons compared with Canfield, Duchess, and Agnes
Game	Tableau	Packing	Base rank	Stock
Four Seasons	5 cross piles	Down by rank, wrapping	Set by the seeded card	46, one pass
Canfield	4 columns of 1	Down, alternating colour	Set by the seeded card	Draw three, unlimited passes
Duchess	4 columns of 1	Down, alternating colour	You choose it	Draw one, one redeal
Agnes	7 columns, 1 to 7 cards	Down, alternating colour	Set by the seeded card	Dealt to depots in rows

Four Seasons is the only one that ignores suit in the tableau, and the only one with no reserve at all. Its five piles have to do the work that Canfield spreads across four columns and a thirteen-card reserve.

Explore

More solitaire games

The rest of the base-rank family, from four columns to seven.