Rules
Shamrocks Solitaire rules at a glance
- Use one standard 52-card deck.
- Deal seventeen face-up fans of three cards, plus one final single-card fan.
- Before play, tuck any non-bottom king underneath its opening fan.
- Only the top card of each fan is playable.
- Foundations start with aces and build upward by suit to kings.
- Fan cards may move one rank up or one rank down regardless of suit.
- Aces and kings do not wrap in the fan layout.
- No fan may contain more than three cards.
- Empty fans cannot be filled.
- There is no stock, waste, redeal, reshuffle, or mercy draw in this version.
- Win by moving all 52 cards to the foundations.
How to play
How to play Shamrocks Solitaire
Shamrocks is a fan-family solitaire game. The whole deck begins face up, arranged in small piles. That makes the game look open, but access is still tight: only the top card of each fan can move. A buried card may be perfectly visible and still completely unavailable until the cards above it leave.
Start by sending exposed aces to the foundations. Each foundation is tied to a suit and climbs in normal order: ace, 2, 3, and so on to king. A 4 of clubs can go only onto the clubs foundation after the 3 of clubs is already there. Foundation moves never ignore suit.
Tableau moves are the opposite kind of freedom. A top 7 can move onto any top 8 or any top 6, regardless of suit or color. The catch is capacity. A destination fan with three cards is full, so even a perfect adjacent rank cannot receive another card. This one limit is the heartbeat of Shamrocks.
Version
The exact Shamrocks rule version on this page
This implementation uses the common no-redeal Shamrocks rule set: one deck, 18 face-up fans, top-card-only movement, ace-up suit foundations, up-or-down fan moves that ignore suit, a strict three-card maximum per fan, and closed empty fans.
It also applies the opening king adjustment. If a king is dealt above another card in a fan, the game tucks that king underneath the fan before play begins. Kings are powerful receivers for queens, but they cannot move to another fan by rank and they reach the foundations only after the rest of their suit, so leaving them on top at the start can make a random deal needlessly brittle.
The page does not use the tougher no-tuck house rule, and it does not add a La Belle Lucie-style reshuffle. When the current top-card moves are gone, the deal is over.
Layout
Setup and table layout
The opening layout has 18 fans: 17 fans of three cards and one fan of one card. The fans are shallow enough to scan quickly, and the final single-card fan is often valuable because it has room to accept two cards later.
On a phone, the fan grid wraps into narrow columns so the playable area stays inside the viewport. On desktop, the cards grow and the fans spread into a wider table, but the same rules and positions are used.
Access
Which cards are playable?
Only the top card of each non-empty fan is playable. Cards underneath are visible information, not legal sources. If a 2 of spades is buried under a queen and a 9, you can see your future foundation card, but you cannot take it until both covering cards have legally moved away.
Empty fans do not become free cells. They remain closed, which means clearing a fan helps only by removing cards from the table. The real working space comes from the fans that still have one or two cards and can legally receive another adjacent rank.
Examples
Legal and illegal Shamrocks moves
Foundation moves are strict. If the hearts foundation shows 6 hearts, only 7 hearts can go there. The 7 of diamonds belongs on the diamonds foundation, and the 8 of hearts skips a rank.
Fan moves check only rank adjacency and room. A 10 can move onto a 9 or a jack. Suit does not matter, color does not matter, and direction can change from move to move. But a fan with three cards is full, and an ace cannot be placed on a king or a king on an ace.
FoundationA hearts starts the hearts foundation
Foundation5 clubs goes onto 4 clubs
Fan down7 clubs goes onto any 8
Fan up7 clubs goes onto any 6
IllegalA card cannot move onto a full three-card fan
IllegalAces and kings do not wrap in the tableau
King rule
Why Shamrocks tucks kings under fans
A king on top of a fan is often dead weight at the start. It can receive queens, but it cannot move onto another tableau card because there is no rank above king, and it cannot go to a foundation until twelve lower cards of the same suit are already home.
Tucking non-bottom kings under their fans changes the opening from arbitrary blockage to a more playable puzzle. It does not make the game easy. Those kings still have to reach the foundations eventually, and they can still trap cards if you build over the wrong pile later.
Capacity
The three-card limit is the central constraint
Shamrocks gives you more rank freedom than many fan games, but it takes away vertical space. Every fan starts at or below the maximum, and no fan may ever grow to four cards. A two-card fan is useful. A one-card fan is even more flexible. A three-card fan can only give cards away.
This makes "legal later" an important question. Moving a card onto a two-card fan may open a buried ace, which is excellent. The same move may also fill your best landing place and remove it from the rest of the deal.
Strategy
Shamrocks Solitaire strategy that changes the table
Move exposed aces and low foundation cards promptly, but still check what each card is supporting. A 4 might be ready for its foundation, yet it could also be the only landing card for a buried 3 that unlocks a full fan. Shamrocks rewards foundation progress, but it punishes automatic clearing when the table still needs that rank.
Protect your one-card and two-card fans. They are the nearest thing Shamrocks has to workspace. A one-card fan can receive two useful moves before it fills. A two-card fan can receive one. Filling those fans with moves that expose nothing can leave the table with plenty of visible cards and nowhere useful to put them.
Prefer moves that uncover a specific card. Since there is no redeal, every buried ace, 2, or next foundation card has to be released by actual fan movement. A move that uncovers a foundation card is usually stronger than a move that simply makes a tidy rank chain on top of an already full pile.
Watch both directions around key ranks. If a 7 is on top, it can receive either a 6 or an 8. That flexibility is precious. Before covering it or sending it to a foundation, check whether both neighboring ranks need it as a landing place. Sometimes the best Shamrocks move is waiting one turn, because the same card can solve two different problems.
Mistakes
Common Shamrocks mistakes
- Trying to place a fourth card on a fan because the ranks match.
- Forgetting that fan moves ignore suit, while foundation moves require suit.
- Filling the one-card fan too early with a move that uncovers nothing.
- Clearing a fan and expecting to reuse the empty space.
- Assuming an ace can wrap onto a king in the tableau.
- Moving a destination rank away before checking which buried card needed it.
Difficulty
Is Shamrocks Solitaire winnable?
Shamrocks is not always winnable. It gives you full visibility and flexible up-or-down movement, but it also gives you no redeal and very little space. A deal can fail because the necessary next foundation card is buried under cards that have no legal landing place.
This page does not claim a numeric win rate because that should be measured against this exact implementation, including king tucking and the no-redeal rule. In practical play, Shamrocks feels more tactical than its calm fan layout suggests. Undo is useful because a move that looks harmless can consume the only fan with spare capacity.
Scoring
How scoring and progress work here
The game uses a simple win condition rather than a point score. You win when all 52 cards reach the four foundations. The status panel tracks foundation progress, tableau cards, active fans, and moves so you can tell whether the deal is opening up or only shifting cards between full piles.
New game creates a fresh shuffle. Restart replays the same shuffle from the beginning. Undo steps back through your moves, which is especially useful for testing whether filling a two-card fan actually created progress.
Variants
Shamrocks variants and nearby house rules
The main Shamrocks rule variation is the opening king rule. Some descriptions leave the kings exactly where they are dealt. That makes the game noticeably harsher because a top king can lock a fan before the player has made a decision. This page uses king tucking, which is friendlier and keeps the early puzzle from being dominated by one bad king.
Shamrocks is often discussed beside La Belle Lucie because the layout is the same. The movement is not. La Belle Lucie usually builds fans down by suit and gives reshuffles. Shamrocks trades those reshuffles for rank flexibility and the hard three-card limit. That trade makes the game shorter, sharper, and less forgiving once space runs out.
Nearby games
How Shamrocks compares with La Belle Lucie, Bristol, and Flower Garden
La Belle Lucie is the closest relative if you want the same 18-fan opening with stricter suit logic and reshuffles. Bristol is the friendlier fan-family stop: it ignores suit in both tableau and foundations, but adds reserve piles and a stock. Flower Garden keeps all cards visible in a different way, with six working columns and a bouquet reserve rather than many small capped fans.
Choose Shamrocks when you want a compact game where every move is visible and the hard question is space, not hidden information. Choose La Belle Lucie when you want suit order and reshuffle timing. Choose Bristol or Flower Garden when you want a little more working room and a longer planning arc.