Bristol

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card order
3. The parts of the layout
4. Setup
5. Playing
6. Winning
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants

Overview

Bristol is a quick patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire). You collect the whole deck on four piles, each running from Ace up to King. Suits and colours don't matter at all – any 2 goes on any Ace, any 6 on any 7. The trouble comes from high cards lying on top of low ones, and from the three reserve piles, which fill up with whatever the stock brings.

• Players: 1
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
• Time: about 5 minutes per game.

Card order

The Ace is low. From lowest to highest:

A – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – J – Q – K

The parts of the layout

• Tableau: eight small fans of cards. A fan is a group of cards spread so that you can see all of them; only the top card – the one lying fully uncovered – can be moved.
• Foundations: four piles above the tableau, each started with an Ace and built up to the King. They are empty at the start.
• Reserve: three piles below the tableau. Only the top card of each is available.
• Stock: the face-down rest of the deck.

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal eight fans of three cards each, face up.
2. If a fan contains a King, move the King to the bottom of its fan (under the other cards). Do this for every King in the tableau; if a fan has two Kings, put both at the bottom and keep their order.
3. Below the tableau, deal three cards face up in a row. They start the three reserve piles.
4. The remaining 25 cards are the stock.

Playing

Move one card at a time. The top card of any fan or any reserve pile may go:

• to a foundation: an Ace starts a new foundation; any other card goes on a foundation whose top card is one lower – in any suit (a 5 on any 4);
• onto a fan: on a card one higher – in any suit (a 9 on any 10).

Cards can't be moved onto the reserve piles, and foundation cards stay where they are.

When a fan is cleared completely, its place stays empty for good – that is why the Kings go to the bottom at the start.

When you can't or don't want to move anything else, deal from the stock: one card face up on each of the three reserve piles, then play again. A reserve pile that has been emptied gets a new card only with the next deal. The stock runs out after nine deals; the last one is a single card, which goes on the first reserve pile.

Example: The foundations show 3 and 5. A reserve pile shows a 6, a fan shows a 4. The 4 goes on the 3, the 6 on the 5. The fan card under the 4 is a 7: move it onto an 8 in another fan, and the card under the 7 is free.

There is no redeal.

Winning

You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. If the stock is used up and no card can be moved, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance of winning at about 1 in 3.

Tips for beginners

• The real danger is a reversed pair: a higher card on top of a lower one, in a fan or on a reserve pile. Use the tableau to move the higher card away, or build up a foundation quickly to take it off.
• The reserve piles are just as dangerous as the fans: cards buried there only come free from the top. Before each deal, play off every card you can so that it isn't buried.
• Don't clear a fan without reason – you can never use the empty space.

Variants

All of these are optional – choose one before you start.

• Belvedere: take out one Ace before the deal and set it up as the first foundation; otherwise the same rules.