Streets Solitaire
How to play Streets
Streets is a two-deck solitaire game of the Forty Thieves family that deals the same ten face-up piles of four but builds them down in alternating colours instead of in suit.
Forty Thieves with the piles built down in alternating colours.
The goal of Streets
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 Streets
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.
Streets rules
Piles build down in alternating colours, 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 Streets
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.
Streets strategy tips
Alternating colours give each card four places on the table instead of the two it has in Forty Thieves. The cost is that a pile mixes suits while only one card moves at a time, so a long pile has to come apart card by card before its cards can go home.
When two piles could take a card, choose the one whose cards you need least soon. Each card laid on a pile is one more to move before you reach what lies under it.
An empty pile is the only place a King can go before its foundation is ready, and the only place to set a card aside while you take a mixed pile apart. Fill one only with a card that will stay useful there.
With two decks, a card you need may have a twin that is easier to reach. Before you dig for a card buried in a pile, check where its other copy lies.
Mixed suits slow the foundations down. In a pile of a black Nine, a red Eight and a black Seven, the Eight goes home only after the Seven has moved, so before you build a pile long, ask which of its cards the foundations will want first.
Streets questions and answers
How do you play Streets 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 alternating colours, 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 Streets and Forty Thieves?
Streets deals the same ten piles of four, moves one card at a time and goes through the stock once. Its piles build down in alternating colours instead of in suit, so each card below a King has four cards it can go on rather than two.
Can you move a run in Streets?
No. However neatly a pile alternates red and black, its cards leave one at a time. Shifting four cards in order onto another pile needs a place for each of them in turn, which is why an empty pile matters so much here.
Can every Streets deal be won?
Not necessarily. Searching up to a million positions per deal, the game's solver proved 42% of the Streets deals it tried winnable, so at least that share can be won. That is well above the 29% of Forty Thieves, which deals the same piles but builds them in suit. 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 Streets game?
Yes. Streets has a daily board, the same deal for everyone that day, dealt the way a Winnable board is. Log in to play it.