The board is the win condition

Grandfather's Clock Solitaire

Twelve foundations sit on a clock face, and each one is finished when its top card matches the hour it occupies. You win when the clock reads correctly all the way round.

Twelve foundations on a dial
Each ends on its hour
Build down, any suit
Nothing hidden

Found.12/52

Tableau40

Spaces0

Moves0

Build the clock foundations by suit.

Clock foundations1 to 12

Twelve hours, eight columns

Grandfather's Clock Solitaire rules

Print this with the table of hours below and you have the entire game on one page.

Grandfather's Clock Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Deck	One standard 52-card deck.
The clock	Twelve foundations laid out as a clock face, each seeded with one card.
Tableau	Eight columns holding the remaining forty cards, all face up.
Hidden cards	None.
The clock foundations
Building	Up in suit from the seeded card, wrapping past the king to the ace.
Where each stops	On the rank that matches its position on the dial.
The twelve o'clock pile	Finishes on a queen; eleven finishes on a jack; one finishes on an ace.
Pile sizes	They differ — each foundation needs only as many cards as its hour requires.
The tableau
Building	One rank lower, on to any suit at all.
Moving	One card at a time. There are no group moves.
An empty column	Accepts any available card.
Kings	Nothing may be placed on a king, so a king on a column top is a dead end until it leaves.

The dial and the tableau

How to play Grandfather's Clock Solitaire

Twelve cards are set out as a clock face, one at each hour, and each becomes a foundation. The other forty go into eight columns, all face up — there is nothing hidden and no stock.

Each foundation climbs in suit from the card it was seeded with, wrapping past the king back to the ace, and stops when it reaches the rank matching its hour. The pile at three o'clock finishes on a three, the pile at eleven on a jack, the pile at twelve on a queen.

The tableau is deliberately loose to compensate: build down by rank with no regard to suit, and an empty column will take any card you can reach.

Hour by hour

What each hour is asking for

These twelve pairings never change from deal to deal. The piles are not all the same depth: the four seeded with a 10, jack, queen or king need five cards to reach their hour, and the other eight need four. That is 52 cards exactly, which is the whole deck.

Every clock foundation: where it starts and where it stops
Hour	Seeded with	Finishes on
1 o'clock	10♥	A♥
2 o'clock	J♠	2♠
3 o'clock	Q♦	3♦
4 o'clock	K♣	4♣
5 o'clock	2♥	5♥
6 o'clock	3♠	6♠
7 o'clock	4♦	7♦
8 o'clock	5♣	8♣
9 o'clock	6♥	9♥
10 o'clock	7♠	10♠
11 o'clock	8♦	J♦
12 o'clock	9♣	Q♣

You can see the win coming from across the room. No other game on this site has a finish line you can read at a glance. It also explains where the difficulty sits: the twelve target ranks run from ace to queen, so a king is never a foundation's last card — it is always a card in transit, and one that nothing in the tableau can be placed upon.

Dial or column

What the dial and the columns accept

Legal and illegal Grandfather's Clock moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A column shows the 8♠. You play the 7♥ on it.	Legal	Down by rank, and suit is not consulted.
A column shows the 8♠. You play the 7♠ on it.	Legal	Also fine — matching suits are neither required nor banned.
A column shows the 8♠. You play the 9♥ on it.	Illegal	The tableau builds downward only.
The 9 o'clock foundation shows the 8♥. You play the 9♥.	Legal	It climbs in suit and stops at the 9, its hour.
The 9 o'clock foundation shows the 9♥. You play the 10♥.	Illegal	That foundation is complete. Nine o'clock ends on a nine.
A column empties. You move any card into it.	Legal	Empty columns take anything here.
The 4 o'clock foundation began on the K♣. You play the A♣.	Legal	Foundations wrap past the king and continue from the ace.

The blocker

Nothing can be placed on a king

The tableau builds downward and no rank outranks a king, so a king on top of a column is a column you cannot add to. With only eight columns, two kings sitting out is a quarter of the board closed.

Kings do move — every foundation passes through the king on its way round to the ace — but they leave only when that specific suit's pile has climbed to the queen. Until then, a king on a column top has to be lifted into an empty column, which is the main reason spaces are worth so much here.

Winding the clock

Grandfather's Clock Solitaire strategy

Clear the four-card piles first. Eight of the twelve foundations need only four cards, and every one you finish is a pile you can stop thinking about.

Get kings off column tops early. They cannot be built on and they cannot leave until their suit is nearly done, so a king in the way is the most expensive card on the board.

Guard your empty columns. They accept any card, which makes them the tool for shifting kings — the one job nothing else can do.

Use the loose packing deliberately. Suit is irrelevant on the tableau, so almost every card can be placed somewhere. Place it where it uncovers something, not merely where it fits.

Three ways it jams

How the clock stops

Treating all twelve foundations as equal

They are not the same depth. The four piles seeded with a 10, jack, queen or king each need five cards to reach their hour; the other eight need only four. Those eight are the quick wins, and clearing them early shortens the list you are still tracking.

Letting kings settle on column tops

The tableau builds downward and nothing outranks a king, so a king sitting on top of a column blocks it completely until a foundation wants it. With eight columns and four kings, two or three stuck kings is most of your board frozen.

Spending an empty column on the nearest card

Empty columns take any card, which makes them the most flexible thing in the game — and the easiest to waste. A space is how you dig a king out of the middle of a column; filling it with a card that already had a home throws that away.

Odds on the clock

Is Grandfather's Clock Solitaire winnable?

Frequently — it is among the friendlier games on this site. Twelve foundations already seeded, nothing hidden, any-suit packing and usable empty columns all pull the same way.

The deals that fail usually fail on kings, stacked on top of columns with no space free to move them into. We do not publish a win rate, but this is a reasonable game to play when you want one that generally comes out.

This version

Twelve seeded foundations, eight open columns

One deck: twelve foundations on a clock face, forty cards in eight columns, all face up.
Each foundation climbs in suit from its seed, wrapping past the king.
Each stops on the rank matching its hour — ace at one through queen at twelve.
The tableau builds down by rank with suit ignored, one card at a time.
Empty columns accept any card. There is no stock and no redeal.

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

Two clocks compared

Two clocks, and two games that pack the same way

Grandfather's Clock shares its dial with one game here and its tableau rule with two others, and it has almost nothing else in common with any of them.

Grandfather's Clock compared with Clock Patience, Baker's Dozen, and Spanish Patience
Game	Foundations	Tableau building	Empty columns	Face down
Grandfather's Clock	12, each stopping at its hour	Down by rank, any suit	Take any card	None
Clock Patience	None — thirteen piles on a dial	None	Not applicable	All but one card
Baker's Dozen	4, up in suit from the ace	Down by rank, any suit	Dead	None
Spanish Patience	4, up in suit from the ace	Down by rank, any suit	Take any card	None

The name is the only thing this shares with Clock Patience, which hides every card and offers no decisions whatsoever. This one hides nothing and is almost entirely decisions.

Explore

More solitaire games

The other dial game, and two that share this one's packing rule.