Limited Solitaire
How to play Limited
Limited is a two-deck solitaire game of the Forty Thieves family in which twelve face-up piles of three are built down in suit, one card at a time, with a single pass through a stock of 68 cards.
Twelve piles of three built down in suit, one card at a time, with one pass through the stock.
The goal of Limited
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 Limited
Two standard decks are shuffled together, 104 cards in all. Thirty-six are dealt face up into twelve piles of three, and the other 68 form the stock.
Limited 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, once through with no redeal. Only the top waste card is in play.
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 Limited
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 rest of the stock brings up nothing that can.
Limited strategy tips
With only three cards in each pile, piles empty quickly, but the stock holds 68 cards. Keep an empty pile free for a waste card that would otherwise be covered.
Its twelve piles of three leave no dealt card under more than two others, so every Ace dealt to a pile starts close to the top. Clear the Aces and Twos out of the piles first: the rest of them are in the stock, and you meet each of those only once.
Limited is Lucas without the head start: the Aces stay in the pack and there is one pile fewer. Until the Ace of a suit is home, every card of that suit has to wait on the table or in the waste, so an Ace turned from the stock is worth making room for at once.
A foundation takes the next card of its suit and nothing else. When both copies of a card it wants are free, send home the one whose pile has the card you want under it.
With twelve top cards to build on and no card more than two deep, an empty pile can come within a few moves. Keep it for a card from the waste rather than shuffling table cards around: the table cards are already within reach, the waste cards are not.
An Ace in the stock can come up as late as the 68th turn, and its suit cannot start before it. Build that suit's cards on the table in order meanwhile, so they go home one after another once it arrives.
Limited questions and answers
How do you play Limited solitaire?
Shuffle two decks together, deal twelve piles of three cards face up and keep the other 68 cards as the stock. Build the piles down in suit, one card at a time, and go through the stock once, one card at a time. You win when all 104 cards are home.
What is the difference between Limited and Forty Thieves?
Limited deals twelve piles of three instead of ten piles of four, so 68 cards go to the stock rather than 64. As in Forty Thieves, the piles build down in suit, one card moves at a time and the stock goes through once.
Is Limited easier than Forty Thieves?
By the solver's count, much easier: it proved 70% of the Limited deals it tried winnable and 29% of the Forty Thieves deals. Twelve piles of three keep every dealt card within two of the top and give twelve cards to build on, against four extra cards in the stock.
Can every Limited deal be won?
Not necessarily. Searching up to a million positions per deal, the game's solver proved 70% of the Limited deals it tried winnable, so at least that share can be won. Lucas, which starts with the Aces home and deals thirteen piles, proved 97%. 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 Limited game?
Yes. Limited has a daily board, the same deal for everyone that day, dealt the way a Winnable board is. Log in to play it.