Rules
Kings in the Corners Solitaire rules at a glance
- Use one standard 52-card deck.
- Deal one card to each side pile: north, west, east, and south.
- The four corner piles begin empty and can start only with kings from your hand.
- Deal seven cards to your hand. The remaining 41 cards form the stock.
- Cards build downward by rank and must alternate color.
- Play hand cards onto non-empty piles when they fit the exposed top card.
- Move a whole table pile onto another non-empty pile when its base card fits the destination top card.
- If a side pile becomes empty, any hand card can fill it.
- Draw one stock card at a time into your hand. There is no waste pile and no redeal.
- Win by emptying both the stock and the hand.
How to play
How to play Kings in the Corners Solitaire
Kings in the Corners Solitaire turns the familiar cross-and-corner shedding game into a one-player puzzle. You begin with four side piles on the table, four empty corners, seven hand cards, and a stock. The side piles are already active. The corner piles are waiting for kings.
Your main move is simple: play a card from your hand onto a table pile if it is exactly one rank lower and the opposite color of that pile's top card. A red queen can go on a black king. A black 6 can go on a red 7. A 10 cannot go on a queen, and a red jack cannot go on a red queen.
The second move is what gives the solitaire version its bite. You may move an entire pile onto another non-empty pile, but the move is checked by the bottom card of the moving pile. If a pile starts with a red queen and another pile shows a black king on top, the whole red queen pile can move there, even if several cards are stacked above that queen.
Version
About this one-player rule version
Kings in the Corner is often taught as a multiplayer game where players race to empty their hands. This page is deliberately the solitaire version: one hand, one stock, no opponents, no scoring penalties, and no turn passing. The recognizable pieces remain: four side piles, four king-only corners, descending alternating-color builds, and the ability to combine whole piles.
Because there is no opponent, the win condition is stricter than simply emptying the first seven cards. You win only when the stock is empty and the hand is empty. That means every card in the deck must eventually enter the layout.
Layout
The cross, corners, hand, and stock
The board has eight table piles around the stock. The north, west, east, and south side piles start with one card each. The diagonal corner spaces start empty. On this page, a grown pile is shown in a compact form: its base card, its current top card, and a count. That keeps the game comfortable on a phone while still showing the two cards that decide legal moves.
The hand is where new cards wait before entering the layout. Hand cards can start empty side piles, start empty corners with kings, or build onto non-empty piles. The stock does not create a waste pile. Drawing adds the next stock card directly to your hand.
Examples
Legal and illegal moves
A legal hand move checks the destination top card. A queen of diamonds can be played on a king of clubs or king of spades. It cannot be played on a king of hearts, because both cards are red. It cannot be played on a jack, because the destination must be one rank higher than the card you are playing.
A legal pile move checks a different card: the base of the moving pile. Suppose one pile begins with the 9 of spades and ends with the 5 of hearts. That pile can move onto a red 10, because the 9 of spades is the card that touches the destination. The 5 of hearts on top does not decide the move.
Hand to sideQueen of hearts onto a black king
Hand to cornerAny king from your hand onto an empty corner
Empty sideAny hand card can fill a side pile after it is emptied
Illegal cornerA queen cannot start an empty corner
Whole pileA pile whose base is a red queen can move onto a black king
No wrapA king cannot build onto an ace
Corners
Why the kings matter so much
Kings are the only cards that can open the empty corners. Until a king appears in your hand, a corner is not usable. Once a king is placed there, the pile behaves like any other pile: queens can build on it, then jacks, then tens, always alternating color.
Starting a corner is usually good because it creates another landing place. Waiting can still be correct when the king itself is a useful card in hand, but a closed corner is wasted space. Four closed corners make the side piles carry the whole game.
Side spaces
How empty side piles help
Side piles can become empty only when their whole pile moves away. That empty side space is powerful because any hand card can fill it. It can rescue a card that has no normal build, create a new base for future pile moves, or let you unload a rank before drawing again.
Do not fill an empty side space automatically. Ask whether the card you place there will attract useful lower cards or whether it will become a dead end. A black king or red queen often makes a better new pile than a low card that almost nothing can build on.
Stock
How drawing works in this solitaire version
Drawing takes one card from the stock and adds it to your hand. There is no waste pile, no discard, and no redeal. You may draw whenever you want, but drawing is not harmless: every extra card makes the hand more crowded and gives you one more card that must eventually be played.
A practical rhythm is to check three things before drawing: can a hand card play now, can a whole pile move now, and would a pile move create a useful empty side space? If the answer is no, draw. If the answer is yes, take the table move first and draw from a cleaner position.
Strategy
Kings in the Corners Solitaire strategy
Treat kings as space-makers. A king in the hand can open a corner, and a king on top of a pile can receive a queen. If you have a choice between playing a queen onto a side pile or placing a king into an empty corner first, the king often deserves attention because it creates an entire new pile.
Look for pile moves before easy hand moves. A hand move usually places one card. A good pile move may empty a side space, join two long sequences, and expose a new top card all at once. The best moves make the board smaller without making the hand larger.
Preserve color balance. Since every build alternates color, two red queens competing for one black king can jam the table. If you can choose which red card to play, prefer the one that keeps the other color available for the next rank down.
Be cautious with low cards. Twos and aces do not support much beneath them. An ace on top is a stopper because nothing builds onto it in this version. Low cards are fine when they complete a useful pile, but they are poor choices for fresh side spaces.
Mistakes
Common Kings in the Corners Solitaire mistakes
- Drawing before checking whether a whole pile can move.
- Forgetting that empty corners need kings from the hand.
- Filling an empty side pile with a low card that cannot receive many cards.
- Judging a pile move by the top card instead of the base card.
- Playing every obvious hand card and leaving no flexible landing space.
- Expecting ranks to wrap from ace back to king.
Difficulty
Is Kings in the Corners Solitaire winnable?
Kings in the Corners Solitaire is not always winnable. A random shuffle can hide kings late in the stock, strand too many same-color ranks, or leave piles with base cards that never find the right destination. The game is short enough to replay quickly, but it has real decisions in when to draw and when to combine piles.
This page does not publish a win-rate claim yet. A useful number would need to be measured from this exact one-player rule set, including direct stock-to-hand drawing, whole-pile moves, the no-wrap rank rule, and undo/hint behavior.
Variants
Kings in the Corners variants and house rules
The multiplayer game is usually called Kings in the Corner or King's Corners. It deals players a hand, places four cards around a central stock, and lets players build downward by alternating color while trying to shed their hands. Table rules differ on whether a player must play every available card, how scoring works, and what happens after the stock runs out.
Solitaire versions vary too. Some require drawing only when no move is available. Some count only the original hand, while others, like this page, require every stock card to be played. Some interfaces show every card in every pile; this one summarizes long piles by base, top, and count so the board stays playable on mobile.
Nearby games
How Kings in the Corners compares with Four Seasons, Canfield, and Golf
Four Seasons also uses a corner layout, but it is a foundation game: cards ultimately climb by suit from a base rank. Kings in the Corners is a shedding puzzle instead. There are no foundations, and the table piles are the destination.
Canfield shares the feeling of tight space and important base cards, but it has a reserve, foundations, and a waste. Golf is much faster and cleaner: one waste card drives every move, and there are no whole-pile decisions. Kings in the Corners sits between them as a compact hand-management game with just enough pile movement to make the table feel alive.