Eight Off

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card order and suits
3. The parts of the layout
4. Setup
5. Playing
6. Moving several cards at once
7. Winning
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Eight Off is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) in which every card is face up from the start. Your goal is to sort the whole deck onto four piles, one per suit, from Ace up to King. Eight single reserve spaces help you untangle the columns – four of them are already taken when you start. It is a close relative of FreeCell, but you build in suit, which makes the game stricter.

• Players: 1
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and room for eight columns plus a row of eight single spaces.
• Time: about 15 minutes per game.

Card order and suits

The Ace is low. From lowest to highest:

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

Only the suit matters in this game (♠ ♥ ♦ ♣), not the colour.

The parts of the layout

• Tableau: the eight columns in the middle. The cards in a column are spread downwards so you can see all of them.
• Exposed card: the last card of a column – the one nearest to you, not covered by any other card. Only this card can be moved.
• Reserve: a row of eight spaces. Each can hold exactly one card of any kind.
• Foundations: four spaces, one per suit, where you collect the cards in order, starting with the Ace. At the start they are empty.

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal 48 cards face up, row by row from left to right, into eight columns of six.
2. Lay the last four cards face up in the reserve, one per space. The other four reserve spaces stay empty.
3. Leave room for the four foundations.

Playing

There are no turns – you make one move after another. You always move one card at a time: an exposed card or a card from the reserve. It may go:

1. To a foundation: an Ace starts a foundation; then the 2 of the same suit, the 3, and so on up to the King.
2. Onto another column: onto an exposed card of the same suit and one rank higher – this is called building down in suit. The 9♥ goes onto the 10♥, the 8♥ onto the 9♥. A 9♦ or 9♠ may not go onto the 10♥.
3. Into an empty reserve space – any exposed card. The reserve can never hold more than eight cards.
4. Into an empty column – only a King.

Cards in the reserve stay there until you play them to a column or a foundation. Cards on a foundation stay there.

Example: Column 3 ends in 10♣ 4♥ and the 9♣ sits in the reserve. Move the 4♥ to an empty reserve space, then play the 9♣ from the reserve onto the 10♣. You have used one space and freed another.

Moving several cards at once

By the rules you move one card at a time, but you may park the lower cards of a sequence in empty reserve spaces and rebuild it on its new card. As a shortcut you may move a whole same-suit sequence (e.g. 8♠ 7♠ 6♠) at once, as long as you have enough empty reserve spaces to do it card by card: empty spaces + 1 cards. With 2 empty reserve spaces you may move 3 cards.

Empty columns don't help here, because only a King may go into them.

Winning

You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. If you are stuck – the reserve is full and no card can move anywhere useful – the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance of winning at about 1 in 2.

Tips for beginners

• Look before you move. Everything is visible, so plan several moves ahead.
• The main trouble is a reversed sequence: a higher card lying on a lower card of the same suit. Find these first and plan how to untangle them.
• Keep reserve spaces free. A full reserve is as bad as a buried card, and a reversed sequence in the reserve blocks you just as badly.
• Don't rush to empty a column: only a King can use it.
• Sometimes you must build one foundation up quickly to get rid of a high card that blocks you.

Variants

All optional:

• Any card in an empty column: as in FreeCell. Much easier.
• Alternating colours: build the columns down in alternating colours (a red 9 on a black 10) instead of in suit – easier.
• Baker's Game: four reserve spaces (free cells), all empty at the start, and all 52 cards dealt into eight columns (7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 6). Build down in suit; any card may fill an empty column. This is FreeCell with building in suit.