Rules
Sultan Solitaire rules at a glance
- Use two standard 52-card decks.
- Place one King of Hearts in the centre as the fixed Sultan.
- Surround him with the other seven kings and one Ace of Hearts.
- Build all eight outer foundations upward by suit, finishing on queens.
- On an outer king, the sequence wraps from king to ace, then continues to queen.
- Nothing may be played on the central King of Hearts.
- All eight face-up Divan cards and the waste top are available.
- A Divan vacancy fills immediately from the waste, or from the stock if the waste is empty.
- Turn the stock one card at a time to the waste.
- Shuffle the waste for up to two redeals, giving three stock passes.
- Foundation cards do not return to play.
- Win when the eight outer foundations all end on queens.
How to play
How to play Sultan Solitaire
Sultan looks ornate, but each turn asks a small question: does an exposed card continue one of the eight outer suit piles? Start with the Divan, the four face-up cards on either side of the palace. Select any of them and then select a legal foundation. You may also play the top card of the waste. There is no tableau packing, no colour alternation, and no moving cards between Divan spaces.
Seven foundations already show kings. Their next card is the ace of the same suit, followed by 2, 3, 4 and upward to queen. The eighth foundation already shows the Ace of Hearts and needs the 2 of Hearts next. Every move stays in suit. When no exposed card builds, turn one card from the stock to the waste and check again.
Moving a Divan card triggers the rule that shapes the whole game: its vacancy is filled at once. The waste top moves into the space if one exists; otherwise the next stock card does. You do not choose whether to refill or which card arrives. That forced transfer is why the order of moves matters even though the foundations themselves are simple.
Foundation order
Why kings, aces, and queens share the palace
Ordinary ace-up solitaire stops at king. Sultan shifts the seam in the rank cycle. A king is already at the bottom of seven foundations, so an ace follows it and the sequence ends at queen. The Ace of Hearts foundation skips that opening king, while the central King of Hearts is decorative and fixed.
Seven king foundationsK, A, 2, 3 … J, QThe ace wraps onto the matching king; the queen completes the pile.
Ace of Hearts foundationA, 2, 3 … J, QThis shorter heart foundation also finishes on a queen.
Central King of HeartsK onlyThis is the Sultan. He is not a foundation and never receives a card.
Two decks provide two kings and two aces of every suit. One heart king becomes the Sultan; the other begins a working heart foundation. One heart ace begins the second heart foundation, while the other heart ace must later be found for the outer heart king. The paired club, diamond, and spade kings each begin two foundations of their suit.
The Divan
Eight open cards, but no storage moves
Divan is the traditional name for Sultan’s reserve. All eight cards are exposed and playable, which gives you several options at once. Each space holds only one card. You cannot rearrange the Divan, build on it, or deliberately leave a hole while cards remain in the waste or stock.
A Divan move therefore reveals more than it removes. If the waste is empty, the next unseen stock card comes straight into the vacated space. If the waste is not empty, its top card is pulled into the Divan and the card beneath becomes the new waste top. One move can expose two useful cards in this way.
Stock and talon
Three passes through changing card order
The stock begins with 87 cards because nine cards form the palace and eight more fill the Divan. Turn stock cards singly onto one face-up waste. Only the waste top is available, so passing a useful card without playing it usually buries it until a later pass.
After the first and second stock passes, press Redeal waste to shuffle the remaining waste into a new stock. The old name for that waste packet is the talon. There is no fourth pass. Cards already absorbed by the Divan or foundations are not part of the reshuffle.
Examples
Legal and illegal Sultan moves
A legal move must use an exposed Divan card or the waste top, match the foundation’s suit, and be exactly the next rank. The duplicated foundations do not change that rule: an ace of clubs may start either club king pile, but it cannot start a spade pile or skip directly to a 2.
LegalMove the ace of clubs onto either outer king of clubs.
LegalMove the 2 of hearts onto the Ace of Hearts foundation.
LegalAfter the ace of spades is on a spade king, move the 2 of spades onto it.
IllegalMove the 2 of diamonds straight onto a diamond king; the ace must be there first.
IllegalMove the ace of clubs onto a king of spades; every build must stay in suit.
IllegalPlace any card on the King of Hearts in the centre; the Sultan always stays alone.
Strategy
Sultan Solitaire strategy: control the forced refill
Check the waste before taking a Divan card. If the waste top is immediately playable, send it to a foundation first. Otherwise, moving from the Divan will force that waste card into the vacancy. That may be useful when it exposes a better card underneath, but it may also occupy a Divan space with a high card whose lower ranks are still buried.
Open both copies of a suit evenly when you can. If one club foundation races ahead while the other still waits for its ace, exposed low clubs may have only one route and duplicates can queue awkwardly. Balanced foundations give the two copies of each rank somewhere to go. The two heart foundations deserve extra attention because one starts at ace and the other starts at king.
Low ranks create access. Aces, 2s, and 3s unlock long stretches of their suits; jacks and queens are finishers that cannot help until much later. When several Divan cards are legal, prefer the move that advances a lagging foundation or brings a promising waste card into view. A legal move is not automatically the best first move.
Slow down near the end of a stock pass. Note which suit and rank each foundation needs and use any playable waste card before redealing. The shuffle can rescue a poor talon order, but it cannot rescue a foundation that still needs an ace trapped behind an unplayable queen in the Divan. On the final pass, clearing an awkward Divan space is often more valuable than adding a high card to an already healthy foundation.
Mistakes
Common Sultan mistakes
- Trying to play on the central King of Hearts instead of the outer heart king.
- Forgetting that a king foundation needs an ace next, not a queen.
- Moving a Divan card without checking which waste card will replace it.
- Drawing again while the current waste top can already build.
- Advancing one duplicate suit foundation while leaving its twin without low ranks.
- Spending the final redeal without reviewing every Divan card and foundation need.
Difficulty
How much is skill and how much is the deal?
Sultan has less rearrangement than a tableau builder, so stock order supplies much of the difficulty. You cannot manufacture an empty column or move a blocking packet out of the way. Your decisions are about timing: which legal card to build, when to draw, and how a forced refill changes the Divan.
That still leaves meaningful play, especially when several foundations accept the same rank or the waste can be consumed before a Divan move. This site deals genuinely shuffled games and does not invent a win percentage or guarantee solvability.
Rule variants
Six-card Divans, redeal order, and other Sultan versions
Sultan has circulated under names including The Sultan, Sultan of Turkey, Emperor, and Emperor of Germany. Its identifying picture stays consistent: a fixed heart king ends up surrounded by queens. The supporting rules are less uniform. Some descriptions deal six reserve cards; others use eight. Some software turns the waste over without changing its order, while older descriptions allow the talon to be shuffled twice.
This playable version makes those choices visible: eight Divan spaces, immediate refill from waste before stock, one-card stock turns, and two shuffled redeals. Cards never come back off the foundations during normal play. If you learned a six-space or unshuffled version, the palace goal is the same but the card flow and odds are not directly comparable.
Origins and layout
Why the finished deal tells a story
Many patience games turn the deck into rows or arithmetic sequences. Sultan turns it into a scene. The central king does no work, the Divan waits at his sides, and the successful outer foundations show eight queens. That visual finish explains the title more clearly than any abstract scoring system could.
The palace here uses the traditional 3x3 idea: diamond kings across the top corners, spade kings beside the Sultan, and club and heart foundations below, with the Ace of Hearts above. On phones the same compact palace remains between four Divan cards on each side, so every active card stays on screen without horizontal page scrolling.