Forty Buccaneers Solitaire
How to play Forty Buccaneers
Forty Buccaneers is a two-deck solitaire game of the Forty Thieves family that deals the same ten face-up piles of four, built down in suit, but lets you turn the waste back into a new stock once.
Forty Thieves with one redeal, so you go through the stock twice.
The goal of Forty Buccaneers
Move all 104 cards onto the eight foundations, two for each suit, each built up from the Ace to the King.
How to set up Forty Buccaneers
Two standard decks are shuffled together, 104 cards in all. Forty are dealt face up into ten piles of four, and the other 64 form the stock.
Forty Buccaneers rules
Piles build down in suit, one rank at a time. Only one card moves at a time, the top card of a pile or of the waste, and an empty pile takes any card.
Turn the stock onto the waste one card at a time. Only the top waste card is in play. When the stock runs out, the waste may be turned back over once, for two passes in all.
A card on a foundation never comes back into play.
Click a card to send it to its foundation, else onto the first pile it builds on, else into an empty pile. Drag it to choose yourself. With Autoplay off in Settings, only a drag moves a card.
How to win at Forty Buccaneers
You win when all 104 cards are home. With the stock and waste empty and every pile in order, Auto complete, on by default in Settings, plays the rest for you. The game is stuck when no card can move and the passes you have left bring up nothing that can.
Forty Buccaneers strategy tips
The one redeal is the whole difference from Forty Thieves, and it changes how you treat the waste. A card you cannot use yet is not lost when the next turn covers it: it comes round again on the second pass, in the same order as before, less the cards you played.
Spend the first pass making the moves that clearly help and learning where the cards you need lie in the stock. On the second pass nothing is new, so you can have a pile or a foundation ready before the card it is waiting for turns up.
Building in suit gives each card only two places on the table, the two copies of the next card up in its suit, so an empty pile is worth more than any single build. Do not fill one with a card that could simply wait for the second pass.
Note where the Aces and Twos lie as the 64 stock cards go by on the first pass. Knowing that a card you need comes up late on the second pass tells you which piles can stay blocked until then and which must be opened first.
Forty Buccaneers questions and answers
How do you play Forty Buccaneers solitaire?
Shuffle two decks together, deal ten piles of four cards face up and keep the other 64 cards as the stock. Build the piles down in suit, one card at a time, and go through the stock twice, one card at a time. You win when all 104 cards are home.
What is the difference between Forty Buccaneers and Forty Thieves?
The deal and the building rules are the same. In Forty Buccaneers, when the stock runs out you may turn the waste back over to make a new stock once, so you go through the stock twice instead of once.
How many times can you go through the stock in Forty Buccaneers?
Twice. The stock is turned one card at a time, and when it runs out you may turn the waste back over to make a new stock once.
Does the waste keep its order when you redeal in Forty Buccaneers?
Yes. Once the stock is empty, the stock button turns the whole waste back over, so the second pass brings up the same cards in the same order, with gaps where you played cards from the waste. After that the button says no redeals are left. With 64 cards that makes up to 128 turns in all, fewer for every card you play from the waste on the first pass.
Can every Forty Buccaneers deal be won?
Not necessarily. Searching up to a million positions per deal, the game's solver proved 39% of the Forty Buccaneers deals it tried winnable, so at least that share can be won. That is ten points more than Forty Thieves, which deals the same piles but has no redeal. With Winnable on, in the menu beside New deal, each board comes from a list of 500 proved deals. Hint asks the same solver for a winning line before it suggests a move.
Is there a daily Forty Buccaneers game?
Yes. Forty Buccaneers has a daily board, the same deal for everyone that day, dealt the way a Winnable board is. Log in to play it.