You choose when it gets harder

Miss Milligan Solitaire

The board starts as eight single cards and grows only when you decide to deal. Ninety-six cards wait in the stock, arriving eight at a time — and when they finally run out, the game hands you one last tool.

Eight columns, one card each
Deal a row when you like
Kings fill spaces
One waiving move

Foundations0/104

Stock96

Reserve0

Tableau8

Moves0

Stock and reserve

Reserve empty

Deal one card to every tableau column whenever you want the next row.

Eight foundations

Build down by alternating color and save the reserve for the endgame.

Eight columns, twelve deals

Miss Milligan Solitaire rules

Worth printing for the waiving rule, which most people have never met in another game.

Miss Milligan Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Decks	Two standard decks — 104 cards.
Tableau	Eight columns of a single card.
Stock	The remaining ninety-six cards.
Foundations	Eight, two per suit, built up from the ace.
Moving cards
On a column	Down by alternating colour.
Sequences	A correctly alternating run moves as one unit.
An empty column	Kings only, alone or leading a run.
To a foundation	Ace first, then up in suit.
The deal
What it does	Puts one face-up card on every column at once.
When	Whenever you choose — the game never forces it.
Empty columns	A deal fills them too, so a space held open is a space spent.
How many	Twelve deals of eight, until the ninety-six cards are gone.
Waiving
What it is	Lifting one valid sequence off the tableau into a holding area.
When it is allowed	Only once the stock is empty, and only while the holding area is empty.
Getting it back	The waived cards go back on to the tableau when they fit.
How many times	One sequence at a time, as often as you can empty the holding area.

Dealing on top

How to play Miss Milligan Solitaire

Eight cards go out, one to each column. That is the entire opening board — ninety-six cards are still in the stock. Whenever you press deal, one face-up card lands on every column at once, and you do this twelve times over the course of a game.

Columns build down by alternating colour and correct runs move together. Only a king may enter an empty column, alone or leading a run. Eight foundations are built up in suit from the aces.

Nothing ever forces you to deal, which is the unusual part: the board only gets harder when you decide it should.

The endgame rule

Waiving: one sequence set aside

Once the stock is empty, Miss Milligan lets you lift a single valid sequence off the tableau and hold it to one side. The cards go back when they fit somewhere. While a sequence is waived, you cannot waive another.

It is effectively one free cell that holds a whole run, and it exists because the endgame of this game is frequently one move short. The discipline is not to reach for it early — it unlocks the moment the stock runs dry, and the temptation is to use it on the first awkward column rather than saving it for the block that actually matters. Before waiving, know where the run is going to land.

Eight cards is a very small board, and that is the best moment of the game. Most games hand you a full tableau and let you dig. Miss Milligan starts almost empty and grows only on your instruction, so the skill is knowing how long you can keep working the small board before you need more material.

The waive

What the deal and the waive allow

Legal and illegal Miss Milligan moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A column shows the 9♥. You move the 8♠ on to it.	Legal	Down by alternating colour, the ordinary rule.
A column empties. You move a queen into it.	Illegal	Kings only, as in Klondike.
A column empties. You move a K♦ with a run under it.	Legal	A king may bring its whole alternating run into a space.
The stock still has cards. You waive a sequence.	Illegal	Waiving unlocks only when the stock is spent.
The stock is empty and nothing is waived. You lift a valid run.	Legal	This is the endgame tool the game keeps in reserve.
A sequence is already waived. You waive a second one.	Illegal	The holding area takes one sequence at a time.
You deal a row while holding an empty column.	Legal	Legal, and usually a waste — the deal fills that column too.

Timing the deals

Miss Milligan Solitaire strategy

Squeeze each board before dealing. The eight-card opening is the easiest position you will ever have; every deal makes the next one harder. Deal only when genuinely nothing moves.

Get aces and twos up as they appear. With ninety-six cards still to come, a low card left on a column will be buried by the next deal but one.

Keep a king in hand for a space. Spaces take kings only, and a space you cannot fill before the next deal is a space the deal will fill for you.

Save the waive for a specific block. It arrives at the moment the stock empties, and it is worth one carefully chosen sequence — not the first run that looks awkward.

Where it gets away

Where a Miss Milligan board gets away

Dealing whenever the board looks quiet

Nothing forces a deal, and every one adds eight cards across all eight columns at once. A deal made while two or three good moves are still available buries them under fresh cards. Take every move first, every time.

Holding an empty column across a deal

A space is worth a great deal here because only kings can fill it — but a deal drops a card into it like any other column. If you have opened a space and are about to deal, put a king in it first or accept that you are giving it away.

Waiving without a plan to unload

The holding area takes one sequence and will not take another until that one is placed. Lifting a run with nowhere for it to return to converts your single endgame tool into a locked cupboard, and the deal usually ends there.

Twelve deals, two decks

Is Miss Milligan Solitaire winnable?

Reasonably often for a two-deck game, and more often than its reputation suggests. Controlling when the board grows is a large advantage, and the waiving rule rescues endgames that would simply be lost elsewhere.

The deals that go wrong tend to go wrong early, from dealing too freely in the first few rounds. We do not publish a win rate: published Miss Milligan rules vary on whether waiving is allowed at all, and it changes the endgame completely.

This version

Eight columns, twelve optional deals, waiving allowed

Two decks: eight columns of one card, ninety-six in the stock.
A deal puts one face-up card on every column, including empty ones.
Tableau builds down by alternating colour; valid runs move together.
Empty columns take kings only, alone or leading a run.
Eight foundations built up in suit from the ace.
Once the stock is empty, one valid sequence at a time may be waived aside.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score. Versions without the waiving rule are markedly harder.

How the deal feeds you

Two-deck Klondikes and how they feed you

All four build the same way and all four demand kings for their spaces. Where they differ is how the rest of the deck reaches the table.

Miss Milligan compared with Gargantua, Batsford, and Klondike
Game	Dealt at the start	Stock	Empty columns	Extra help
Miss Milligan	8	96, dealt in rows of eight	Kings only	One waived sequence after the stock
Gargantua	45	59, drawn one at a time	Kings only	None
Batsford	55	49, drawn one at a time	Kings only	A reserve square for one king
Klondike	28	24, drawn one or three	Kings only	None

Miss Milligan's eight-card opening is by far the smallest in the group, and its stock the largest. That combination — a tiny board you control the growth of — is what makes it feel unlike the rest of the family despite sharing every building rule with Gargantua.

Explore

More solitaire games

The other two-deck Klondikes, and the single-deck original.