Four Seasons

Full rules

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

Overview

Four Seasons is a quick patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire). Five cards form a cross in the middle of the table, and the four corners around it are the four "seasons": four piles on which you collect the cards by suit. Your goal is to get all 52 cards onto the corner piles – when you succeed, the cross has vanished, which is why the game is also called Vanishing Cross.

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

The parts of the layout

• Tableau: the five piles in the shape of a cross, where you can rearrange cards. Only the top card of each pile counts.
• Foundations: the four corners of the cross. All four start with the same rank – the rank of the first foundation card dealt – and each collects one suit.
• Stock: the face-down rest of the deck, which you hold in your hand.
• Waste: a face-up pile onto which you turn cards from the stock that you can't use. Its top card can be played.

Card order

The cards run A – 2 – 3 … 10 – J – Q – K, and the order goes round the corner: after the King comes the Ace again, then the 2. So Q, K, A, 2 is a proper sequence. (If the foundations start with Aces, they simply run from Ace to King.)

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal five cards face up in the shape of a cross: three in a row across the middle, one above and one below the middle card.
2. Deal the sixth card face up into the top left corner of the cross. It starts the first foundation, and its rank is the starting rank for all four foundations.
3. Hold the remaining 46 cards face down as the stock.

In this example the first foundation is the 6♦, so the other three corners will be started by the other three 6s.

Playing

You make one move after another in any order you like. You always move one card at a time. These are the moves:

1. Starting a foundation: as soon as another card of the starting rank becomes available, put it in an empty corner.
2. To a foundation: put a card on a foundation of its suit if it is one rank higher than the top card there, round the corner – with 6s as starting cards, the diamond foundation runs 6♦ 7♦ 8♦ 9♦ 10♦ J♦ Q♦ K♦ A♦ 2♦ 3♦ 4♦ 5♦.
3. Within the cross: put the top card of one cross pile on the top card of another if it is one rank lower, regardless of suit – this is called building down. Round the corner, a King may go on an Ace (unless the Aces are the foundations).
4. Spaces: when a cross pile is empty, fill it with any available card: the top card of another cross pile, the top card of the waste, or the next card of the stock.
5. Using the stock: when you are stuck (or whenever you like), turn the top card of the stock face up. Play it to a foundation or onto the cross if you can; otherwise put it on the waste. The top card of the waste may be played at any time.

Available cards are the top cards of the cross piles, the top card of the waste and the card just turned from the stock.

Example: In the layout above, the 7♦ goes straight onto the 6♦. The 4♠ goes on the 5♥ (one lower, suit doesn't matter). That leaves two spaces in the cross, which you can fill with the next cards from the stock – or keep one free until a useful card turns up.

Winning

There is only one pass through the stock – no redeal. You win when all 52 cards are on the four foundations, 13 on each. If the stock is used up and you can't make any more moves, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith estimated a chance of about one game in ten.

Tips for beginners

• Don't fill a space right away – an empty pile is your most valuable tool. Wait for a card that helps.
• When building down in the cross, prefer putting cards of the same suit on each other if you can: they will go to the foundations together later.
• Watch the cards of the starting rank: until all four are in the corners, their suits can't be built at all.

Variants

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

• Moving sequences: as in the oldest rules (Dick, 1883), you may move a whole built sequence from one cross pile to another if its top card fits there.
• Czarina: spaces in the cross must be filled at once, and only from the stock.
• Simplicity: instead of the cross, deal twelve cards in two rows of six; the thirteenth card starts the first foundation. In the tableau, build down in alternating colours (red on black, black on red). Much easier – Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance at nine games in ten.