Frog

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

Frog is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) for two decks. It plays like Sir Tommy: you turn the cards over one by one and build eight piles from Ace up to King, regardless of suit. Cards that don't fit yet go on one of five waste piles. On top of that there is the Frog, a pile of thirteen cards that you have to play off along the way. Choosing the right waste pile for each card is the whole skill.

• Players: 1
• You need: two standard 52-card decks shuffled together (104 cards), no jokers.
• Time: about 15 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

• Frog: a face-up reserve pile of 13 cards. Only its top card is available (free to be played); when it is played, the card below becomes available.
• Foundations: eight piles in a row, each started with an Ace and built up to the King, in any suit – a 2 of any suit on any Ace, a 3 on any 2, and so on.
• Waste piles: five piles below the foundations, empty at the start, for cards you can't use yet. Spread each pile downwards so you can see all its cards; only the top (last placed) card of each can be played.
• Stock: the rest of the cards, face down in your hand.

Setup

1. Shuffle both decks together.
2. Deal cards face up onto one pile until it holds 13 cards. If an Ace turns up while you deal, don't put it on the pile: lay it out as a foundation and keep dealing. This pile is the Frog. Square it up and put it on the left.
3. If no Ace turned up, look through the stock, take out one Ace as the first foundation and shuffle the stock again.
4. Hold the rest as the stock. Leave room for eight foundations in a row and five waste piles below them.

Playing

Turn over the top card of the stock. You must place it straight away:

• An Ace starts a new foundation.
• Any other card goes on a foundation whose top card is one lower, in any suit, if there is one.
• If it doesn't fit, put it on any one of the five waste piles. Any card may go on any waste pile, in any order.

At any time you may also play the top card of the Frog or the top card of a waste pile onto a foundation, if it fits there. That uncovers the card below, which may then fit too.

Cards can never move from one waste pile to another, onto a waste pile from the Frog, or back from a foundation.

Example: In the layout above you turn a 2♣: it goes on the A♥. Then a 3♦ goes on the 2♣. Then a K♠: nothing wants it, so it goes on a waste pile – keep that pile for high cards. An A♣ starts a second foundation. A 7♦ goes on another waste pile. Then a 4♥ goes on the 3♦ and a 5♣ on the 4♥ – and now the 6♠ from the Frog fits too, and the next Frog card turns up.

Winning

There is only one pass through the stock – no redeal. When the stock is used up, keep playing cards from the Frog and the waste piles for as long as you can. You win when all 104 cards lie on the eight foundations. If cards are left and none of them fits, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith estimated a chance of about 1 in 5.

Tips for beginners

• Keep one waste pile for Kings and Queens, so they don't bury the low cards you need soon.
• On the other piles, put a card on a higher card if you can – then the piles come off in the right order. Best of all is a run going down (9, 8, 7), which you can later play off in one go.
• Don't pile many cards of the same rank on one waste pile, and don't bury all the cards of one rank under high cards – that blocks every foundation.
• Play Frog cards whenever you can: every card left in the Frog at the end is one you still have to find a place for.

Variants

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

• Fly: take all eight Aces out as foundations before you deal. The reserve pile is then called the Fly. Easier.
• Fanny: deal only 12 cards to the reserve and take out no Ace at the start – every Ace has to turn up during play. Harder: Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance at about 1 in 10.
• Dick's Frog: as described in 1883, count off 13 cards, take out any Aces among them and use the rest – possibly fewer than 13 – as the Frog.