Rules
Spanish Patience rules at a glance
- Use one standard 52-card deck.
- Deal thirteen tableau columns of four face-up cards each.
- Before play, move any kings in each column to the bottom of that column.
- There is no stock, waste, reserve, redeal, or draw pile.
- Only the top card of each tableau column is available.
- Foundations build upward by suit from ace to king.
- Tableau cards build downward by one rank regardless of suit.
- Any top tableau card can fill an empty column.
- Win by moving all 52 cards to the foundations.
How to play
How to play Spanish Patience
Spanish Patience is an open one-deck patience game. You can see all 52 cards from the first deal, so the puzzle is not about guessing what is hidden. It is about releasing the right top cards in the right order. Four foundations wait above the tableau, one for each suit, and each foundation builds from ace through king.
The tableau is made of thirteen small columns. Only the top card of a column can move. If a top card is not ready for a foundation, you may pack it onto another top card that is exactly one rank higher. Suits and colors do not matter in the tableau, so a black 9 can land on a red 10, a black 10, or any other 10.
The special freedom is in empty spaces. When a column is cleared, this site lets any available top card move into that space. That makes Spanish Patience more mobile than classic Baker's Dozen, where emptied columns are normally dead.
Setup
The layout and king adjustment
The deal creates thirteen columns with four cards in each column. All cards are face up. Then each column is adjusted so kings sit at the bottom of their columns before play starts. If a column contains more than one king, those kings keep their relative order as they move below the other cards in that column.
This king adjustment comes from the Baker's Dozen family. A king cannot be packed onto a higher card because there is no rank above king, so a king stranded on top of a column at the start would block useful lower cards. Moving kings downward gives the deal a fairer opening shape without adding a stock or reshuffle.
Available cards
Top cards are the whole game
Spanish Patience is not a packet-moving game. A neat descending run in a column does not lift together. Only the uppermost card can move, and every move exposes at most one new card underneath it. That makes each top card a gatekeeper for the cards below.
Before you move a card, check what it will expose. A move that puts a 6 onto a 7 may look natural, but it is much stronger if the card underneath the 6 is an ace, a foundation card, or another card that can keep the column moving. The board is visible, so use that information instead of simply taking the first legal move.
Examples
Legal and illegal Spanish Patience moves
The tableau ignores suits, but the foundations do not. Rank order is exact in both places: one lower in the tableau, one higher on a foundation.
Legal6 of hearts onto any 7
LegalQueen of clubs into an empty column
LegalAce of spades to an empty spade foundation
Legal10 of diamonds onto a jack of clubs
Illegal8 of hearts onto a 7
Illegal3 of clubs to the heart foundation
Empty spaces are legal destinations for any available top card. That does not mean every space move is good. Moving a card into a space should usually expose a card you need, create a useful landing rank, or preserve access to an ace or two.
Spaces
How to use empty columns
Empty columns are the main reason Spanish Patience feels different from Baker's Dozen. A space acts like a temporary workbench. It can move a blocking top card away, reveal a buried foundation card, or let you reorder a small knot of ranks.
The trap is spending a space on a card that does not uncover anything important. If a column is already useful, do not empty it just because you can. A preserved space often matters more than one tidy tableau move.
Foundations
When to build foundations
Aces should normally go up immediately. Twos are usually safe as well. Middle cards need a quick check before they leave the tableau, because a 7 may be the only landing place for an exposed 6 that is holding back several cards.
Since tableau building ignores suit, foundation timing is a little freer than in strict same-suit games. Still, the foundation card disappears from the tableau. If that rank is doing useful work as a landing card, wait until it has served its purpose.
Strategy
Spanish Patience strategy
Start by finding the aces and the cards sitting above them. An ace buried near the bottom of a column is your first project, because no foundation of that suit can start without it. If an ace is already on top, play it. If it is one or two cards down, look for rank matches or a space that can release it.
Use spaces to open columns, not merely to move cards sideways. The best space move often looks modest: shift one top card away, uncover a 2 for a foundation, then free the next card that was waiting behind it. Because only top cards move, a single exposed foundation card can unlock a whole column over several moves.
Keep useful high ranks available. Queens, jacks, and tens are landing pads for many lower cards. If you send too many middle and high cards away or bury them in awkward places, the tableau can lose its ability to sort itself. A good Spanish Patience position usually has both foundation progress and a few flexible landing ranks still showing.
Do not overvalue mixed runs. A 5 on a 6 on a 7 looks orderly, but it can still block cards underneath if none of those cards can move to foundations. Sometimes the better play is to break the surface order so a buried ace, two, or empty-space opportunity appears.
Mistakes
Common Spanish Patience mistakes
- Trying to move a built sequence instead of the single top card.
- Forgetting that tableau suits do not matter.
- Playing a helpful landing rank to a foundation too early.
- Using an empty space without checking what the source column will reveal.
- Chasing neat columns while buried aces remain blocked.
- Assuming every visible deal is solvable just because there are no hidden cards.
Difficulty
Is Spanish Patience hard?
Spanish Patience is approachable because the opening position is fully visible and there is no stock rule to memorize. The difficulty comes from limited movement. One card moves at a time, and only from the top of a column.
The any-card space rule makes this version friendlier than Baker's Dozen, but it does not remove the puzzle. A poor space choice can waste the only route to an ace or bury the rank you needed as a landing card.
Winnability
Is Spanish Patience winnable?
Spanish Patience is not guaranteed from every shuffle. Open information helps a lot, because you can inspect the entire board before committing to a plan. But visibility is not the same as freedom. If the cards needed to release an ace or a low foundation card are blocked under ranks that cannot move, the deal may run out of productive moves.
This page does not claim a precise win rate. A useful number would need to be measured against this exact rule set: kings shifted before play, suit foundations, top-card-only moves, tableau packing regardless of suit, and any-card spaces.
Variants
Spanish Patience variants and related rules
Spanish Patience is usually described as a relative of Baker's Dozen. In Baker's Dozen, empty columns are normally not refilled. Spanish Patience changes that one rule in a big way: any available card can occupy an empty column. Portuguese Solitaire sits between the two, commonly allowing spaces but restricting them to kings.
Some sources describe a looser foundation rule where foundations build upward regardless of suit. This site does not use that version. Here, tableau packing ignores suits, but foundations remain suit foundations from ace to king. That keeps the target clear and makes each suit's low cards important.
Castles in Spain is another nearby name, but it is not the same game. It uses different layout traditions and alternating-color sequence rules in many descriptions, so this page treats Spanish Patience as its own playable Baker's Dozen-family variation.
Nearby games
How Spanish Patience compares with other solitaire games
Compared with Klondike, Spanish Patience is more open and less stock-driven. There are no face-down cards, no waste pile, and no redeal. Compared with FreeCell, it has fewer temporary holding tools, but its any-card spaces can still create satisfying rearrangements.
Compared with La Belle Lucie, Spanish Patience is less strict in tableau suits but stricter in movement, because it does not move sequences. Compared with Australian Patience, it has no stock and no packet movement. If you enjoy compact open layouts where every visible card matters, Spanish Patience is a good bridge between fan games, Baker's Dozen variants, and classic foundation builders.