Normandy (Gypsy)

Full rules

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

Overview

Normandy is a big patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) for two decks that plays much like Klondike. Your goal is to sort all 104 cards onto eight piles, two for each suit, each running from Ace up to King. You build columns down in alternating colours and may move whole runs – and when you are stuck, you deal a new card onto every column. It is one of the standard games in the patience programs of Linux desktops. Most of them call it Gypsy; we follow KDE, which renamed it Normandy because many people find that word derogatory.

• Players: 1
• You need: two standard 52-card decks without jokers (104 cards), shuffled together, and a large table.
• Time: about 20–30 minutes per game.

Card order and colours

The Ace is low. From lowest to highest:

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

♥ hearts and ♦ diamonds are the red suits, ♠ spades and ♣ clubs are the black suits.

The parts of the layout

• Tableau: eight piles (columns) where you rearrange the cards. The cards of a column are spread downwards so you can see every face-up card. The last card of a column is the one nearest to you, not covered by any other card.
• Foundations: eight spaces above the tableau, empty at the start. Each is started with an Ace and built up in suit: the 2 of the same suit, then the 3, and so on up to the King. Each suit gets two foundations.
• Stock: the face-down pile of cards left after dealing. From it you deal new cards onto the columns.

Setup

1. Shuffle both decks together.
2. Deal three rows of eight cards, each row overlapping the one before: the first two rows face down, the third row face up. This gives eight columns of three cards – 24 cards in all.
3. Put the remaining 80 cards face down as the stock. Leave room above the tableau for eight foundations.

Playing

There are no turns – you make one move after another in any order you like.

1. To a foundation: move an Ace that is a last card to an empty foundation. Then build the foundations up in suit with last cards from the tableau.
2. Building in the tableau: you may put a card onto the last card of a column if it is one rank lower and of the other colour – a red 8 on a black 9, a black 3 on a red 4. This is called building down in alternating colours.
3. Moving runs: a group of face-up cards at the end of a column that is correctly built (going down, colours alternating) may be moved together, as a unit, if its highest card fits where it goes. You may also move just the lower part of such a run.
4. Turning up cards: when a face-down card becomes the last card of its column, turn it face up. It is now in play.
5. Empty columns: an empty column may be filled with any last card or any run you are allowed to move. You don't have to fill it at once.
6. Back from a foundation: you may take the top card of a foundation back onto the tableau if it fits there, for example to hold a card that you need to move.
7. Dealing from the stock: whenever you like – usually when you are stuck – deal one card face up onto each of the eight columns, from left to right, including empty ones. The new cards simply cover what lies there. The 80 cards of the stock make ten such deals. There is no redeal.

Example: With the layout above, put the A♦ on a foundation and turn up the card beneath it. Move the 8♥ onto the 9♠ and turn up the card beneath the 8♥: it is the 7♣, which goes on the 8♥. The run 9♠ 8♥ 7♣ can now move as a unit onto a red 10 – the 10♦ in column 7 – and in column 1 you turn up the next face-down card.

Winning

You win when all 104 cards lie on the eight foundations. If the stock is used up and no useful move is left, the game is lost. PySolFC rates the game as "mostly skill": careful planning before each deal from the stock wins many games.

Tips for beginners

• Before you deal from the stock, turn up as many face-down cards as you can – once new cards cover them, they are much harder to reach.
• Empty columns are your best tool: they let you park runs and dig out buried cards. Don't fill one without a reason.
• Prefer moves that free face-down cards over moves that merely tidy up a column.
• Play low cards to the foundations early, but remember you can take a card back if you need it to hold a run.
• Just before a deal, move runs so that the new cards land where they do the least harm.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start. They come from the PySolFC collection.

• Yeast Dough: all 24 cards of the layout are dealt face up. Easier.
• Irmgard: nine columns; under the face-up card they have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 face-down cards. Only a King (or a run headed by a King) may fill an empty column. The last deal from the stock goes onto seven columns only.
• Three decks: shuffle three decks together and deal twelve columns, with twelve foundations.