La Belle Lucie

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card order
3. The parts of the layout
4. Setup
5. Playing
6. Redealing
7. The draw ("merci")
8. Winning
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

La Belle Lucie ("lovely Lucie"), also called The Fan, is a classic French patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire). All the cards are dealt face up in small fans, so you can see everything from the start – but you can only ever take the top card of a fan, and one careless move can bury a card you need. Your goal is to sort all 52 cards onto four piles, one per suit, from Ace to King. You get two fresh deals and one final "free" card to help you.

• Players: 1
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and room for 18 small fans.
• Time: about 15 minutes per game.

Card order

In La Belle Lucie the Ace is low. From lowest to highest:

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

The suits are ♠ spades, ♥ hearts, ♦ diamonds and ♣ clubs. Colours don't matter in this game – only suits.

The parts of the layout

• Fan: a small group of cards, spread out and overlapping so that every card can be seen. Only the top card – the one lying on top, fully visible – can be moved. When it is gone, the card under it becomes the top card.
• Tableau: all the fans together.
• Foundations: four piles, one per suit, where you collect the cards from Ace to King. At the start they are empty.

Setup

Shuffle and deal the whole deck face up in 17 fans of 3 cards each. The last card forms an 18th fan on its own. Leave room for the four foundations.

Here are the first six fans of a deal; in each fan the last card is the top card:

Playing

There are no turns – you make one move after another. Each move takes one top card:

1. To a foundation: an Ace that becomes a top card starts a foundation. On it you build upwards in the same suit: 2, 3, 4 … up to the King.
2. Onto another fan: you may put a top card onto the top card of another fan if it is one rank lower and of the same suit – this is called building down in suit. For example the 8♣ may go onto the 9♣, and the 4♥ onto the 5♥.
3. One card at a time: you may never move two or more cards together.
4. Empty fans: when a fan is used up, its place stays empty – nothing may be put there.

Example: In the fans above, the A♠ goes to a foundation, and the 2♠ from fan 4 would follow – but it lies under the 8♣. So first put the 8♣ onto the 9♣; now the 2♠ is free and goes onto the A♠. Next, fan 4 shows the Q♣.

Redealing

When you are stuck, gather up all the cards that are not on the foundations, shuffle them and deal them again in fans of three. If one or two cards are left over, they form a fan of their own. You may do this twice in a game (two redeals).

The draw ("merci")

After the second redeal, when you are stuck once more, you get one last help: you may pull out any one card that lies under other cards in a fan and play it – to a foundation or onto another fan. Then carry on as far as you can.

Winning

You win when all 52 cards are on the four foundations. If you are stuck after the last redeal and the draw, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith estimated about one win in ten games.

Tips for beginners

• Play every card you can to the foundations – a card that fits there is of no use in the tableau.
• Once you build a card onto another fan, it can only leave again to a foundation. Think first about which cards you bury under it.
• Look at the cards buried under Kings. If a King lies on the 10♠, the 9♠ can never go onto the 10♠ – so you may safely build the 8♠ onto the 9♠.
• A card lying on a lower card of the same suit (a 9♥ on the 4♥) blocks that fan until a redeal.
• Look at all possible moves before you make the first one: every card is visible, so the game rewards careful planning.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Trefoil: take out the four Aces first and put them down as foundations; deal the other 48 cards in 16 fans of 3.
• Fan (Kings in spaces): an empty fan may be filled with a King; there are no redeals.
• Without the draw: play with two redeals but no final draw – that is how many books describe the game.