Rules for Kings in the Corner

Family: Four Seasons
Categories: Simple, Small, Pretty
Variants: Four Seasons,Simplicity
Also Known As:

This game is similar to Four Seasons and was recommended to us by a Solitaire Till Dawn enthusiast. We don’t know its real name, if it has one, so we called it “Kings in the Corner” at the contributor’s suggestion. If you recognize it and know it by any other names, please let us know!

Kings in the Corner is a simple game to learn and doesn’t need much table room. We aren’t expert at it ourselves, but we believe you could win one or two games in ten if you follow good strategy.

Layout

Place five cards face up in a cross formation; these are the tableaus. The four empty corners are the foundations. Keep the rest of the deck in your hand, ready for dealing into the discard pile.

Play

Top cards of tableaus and the discard pile are available for play onto tableaus and foundations. Tableaus build down circularly (so that King may be played on Ace) without regard to suit. Any available card may be played to an empty tableau.

Foundations build up in suit from the Ace to the King.

Dealing

Deal one card from the deck onto the discard pile at any time. There are no redeals; when the deck is empty, no more dealing is allowed.

Goal

The goal is to move all the cards onto the foundations, so that there is a King in every corner.

Tips

Sometimes you can move multiple cards from one tableau to another, by moving individual cards to other tableaus (especially empty ones) before collecting them all again onto the destination. Learn this trick; it’s important for organizing your tableaus.

When possible, empty a tableau by building its cards onto other tableaus or onto the foundations. Try to keep a couple of tableaus empty most of the time.

When possible, organize the tableaus in suit. Then you can occasionally peel off an entire tableau to a foundation, leaving the tableau empty.

Play most cards to the foundations as soon as possible. However, sometimes it is worthwhile to leave a card in the tableau, in order to empty another tableau. It’s possible to play a King onto an Ace in the tableaus, and this might help you collect high-ranking cards into a single tableau pile.

High ranking cards from the deck should not be played to empty tableau piles. Leave them in the discard pile until dealing is done.

When dealing is done and the tableaus have been emptied as much as possible, peel cards off the discard onto the tableaus and foundations. Keep trying to maintain a couple of empty piles so that out-of-order cards in the discard pile have somewhere to go.