Three decks on one table

Sixty Thieves Solitaire

A hundred and fifty-six cards, twelve columns of five, and twelve foundations waiting to be filled. The packing rule is as strict as Forty Thieves — same suit, one card at a time — but there is three times as much of everything.

Three decks, 156 cards
Twelve columns of five
Twelve foundations
One pass, one card

Foundations0/156

Stock96

Waste0

Tableau60

Moves0

Stock and waste

Waste empty

Draw one card to the waste. The stock has one pass only.

Twelve foundations

Build foundations by suit and protect your empty columns.

Three decks, sixty out

Sixty Thieves Solitaire rules

The counts are what people forget: three decks, twelve columns, twelve foundations, one pass.

Sixty Thieves Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Decks	Three standard decks shuffled together — 156 cards.
Tableau	Twelve columns of five cards, all face up. Sixty cards in play.
Foundations	Twelve. Three per suit, each built ace to king.
Stock	The remaining ninety-six cards, face down.
Moving cards
On a column	One rank lower and the same suit. Nothing else packs.
Group moves	None. Only the exposed card of a column moves, ever.
An empty column	Accepts any single card.
To a foundation	Ace first, then up in suit. Any of the three foundations for that suit will take it.
Off a foundation	Not allowed.
The stock
Drawing	One card at a time to the waste.
Passes	One. When the stock is empty it stays empty.
Waste	Only the top card is playable, to a column or a foundation.
Winning
Win condition	All twelve foundations complete — 156 cards.
Losing	The stock is spent and nothing on the table or the waste can move.

Forty Thieves at 1.5x

How to play Sixty Thieves Solitaire

Three decks are shuffled together and sixty cards go out as twelve columns of five, every one face up. The other ninety-six become the stock. Twelve foundations sit above the table, three for each suit, and each one has to be built from an ace all the way to a king.

Columns pack downward in suit and nowhere else. A single card moves at a time, so a run you have assembled is not a unit — it is a stack you will have to dismantle card by card, each one needing somewhere to land. An empty column will take any card, and that is the only relief the game offers.

The stock gives you one card at a time and one pass only. When it runs out, whatever is left on the table is the whole game.

What three decks actually change

No card is ever the only one

In a single-deck game, a card buried under a long column can be fatal: there is one 7♠ and if it is unreachable, the ♠ foundation stops at six. With three decks there are three of every card, so being blocked is almost never permanent — another copy is somewhere in that ninety-six card stock.

The catch is that it works both ways. Three copies of a card also means three times as many cards competing for the same landing spots, and a column that packs 9♠, 8♠, 7♠ can be rebuilt by a second 9♠ arriving from the waste with nowhere else to go. The abundance that rescues you mid-game is the same abundance that clogs the table late in it.

Sixty Thieves is Forty Thieves scaled by exactly one and a half. 156 cards instead of 104, sixty on the table instead of forty, ninety-six in the stock instead of sixty-four — every count multiplied by 1.5, and the same table-to-stock proportion. What does not scale is the column depth: five cards instead of four. With no group moves, that one extra card is where the added difficulty actually lives.

What a column will take

What a Sixty Thieves column will take

Legal and illegal Sixty Thieves moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A column shows the 9♠. You play an 8♠ on to it.	Legal	Same suit, one rank lower. The only packing this game allows.
A column shows the 9♠. You play an 8♣ on to it.	Illegal	Black is not enough. Sixty Thieves packs in suit, not by colour.
A column shows the 9♠ with the 8♠ already on it. You move both to a 10♠.	Illegal	There are no group moves. The eight first, then the nine, each needing its own landing spot.
A column is empty. You play the Q♦ into it.	Legal	An empty column takes any single card.
Two ♥ foundations sit at the 6. You play a 7♥ on either of them.	Legal	The three foundations for a suit are interchangeable. Pick whichever you like.
The stock is empty. You turn the waste over to run it again.	Illegal	One pass only. When the stock is gone the game is what is on the table.
You take a 5♦ back off a foundation to unblock a column.	Illegal	Foundations never give cards back.

Handling the scale

Sixty Thieves Solitaire strategy

Open a column early and guard it. With no group moves and five-card columns, an empty column is worth more than any single card you could put in it. Aim your first twenty moves at clearing one.

Get the aces up, but stop there for a while. Twelve foundations need twelve aces, and until those are placed nothing else can start. After that, be slower — twos and threes left on columns are landing spots you will want.

Prefer the move that shortens a five-card column. Depth is the enemy here. Two columns at four cards are far healthier than one at three and one at five.

Read the waste card before you draw. Ninety-six cards is a long pass and each is offered once. The discipline of knowing where a card is going before you turn the next one is most of the difference between finishing and stalling with forty cards left.

Where the table collapses

Where a Sixty Thieves table collapses

Spending an empty column on the first card that fits

Twelve columns sounds like plenty until you need one free. With no group moves, an empty column is the only place you can park a card that has nowhere else to go, and it is the only tool you have for digging into a five-card column. Filling one to make a single tidy move is the most expensive habit in the game.

Playing all three copies of a rank to the foundations on sight

The three decks mean a card is rarely irreplaceable — but the reverse is also true, and it cuts the other way at the end. A low card left on a column is a landing spot for the rank below it, and with three copies in circulation there is usually another one coming. Bank the one you cannot use and keep the one doing work.

Drawing on without a plan for the waste card

Ninety-six cards go through the waste on a single pass, and each one is playable for exactly as long as it sits on top. Drawing quickly to find something useful buries the thing you just passed over. Before each draw, know where the current card is going.

Sixty Thieves' chances

Is Sixty Thieves Solitaire winnable?

Rarely, and it is the hardest game in this family by some distance. Strict suit packing, no group moves, five-card columns and a single pass through ninety-six cards is a demanding combination, and the three decks add bulk without adding freedom.

The compensation is that blocks are seldom fatal — there is usually another copy of the card you need. What kills deals is running out of places to put things. We do not publish a win rate: it swings hard on whether a version allows a redeal, and this one does not.

This version

Three decks, no group moves, no redeal

156 cards from three decks; twelve columns of five, all face up.
Twelve foundations, three per suit, each built ace to king.
Columns pack down in suit only, one card at a time.
Empty columns accept any single card.
Stock draws one card at a time with a single pass and no redeal.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score. Some published versions of Sixty Thieves allow multi-card moves when enough empty columns are free; this one does not.

Family resemblance

Sixty Thieves against its family

All four are the same game with the dials moved. The last column is the one that matters most and is rarely stated: how many cards in the whole deck can legally accept a given card. It is the cleanest measure of how forgiving each version is.

Sixty Thieves compared with Forty Thieves, Limited, and Maria
Game	Decks	Tableau	Packing	Cards that can accept a given card
Sixty Thieves	3 (156 cards)	12 columns of 5	Down in suit	3
Forty Thieves	2 (104 cards)	10 columns of 4	Down in suit	2
Limited	2 (104 cards)	12 columns of 3	Down in suit	2
Maria	2 (104 cards)	9 columns of 4	Down by alternating colour	4

Sixty Thieves scores three because three decks mean three copies of the one card that fits. That is a real advantage over Forty Thieves, and it is swallowed whole by the extra depth: five-card columns with no group moves are harder to unpick than anything the smaller games can throw at you.

Explore

More solitaire games

The rest of the Thieves family, from the shallowest tableau to the loosest packing rule.

Tested rules

How this solitaire game is checked

Game logic is implemented and tested by Brian Hamilton, then reviewed by Karan Hamilton for rule clarity, player flow, and correction notes.

How we make and test solitaire games