Picture Gallery

Full rules

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

Overview

Picture Gallery is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) for two decks. Twenty-four cards lie in three rows – the gallery – and each place in the gallery has to be built up in steps of three: in the top row 2, 5, 8, Jack; in the middle row 3, 6, 9, Queen; in the bottom row 4, 7, 10, King. If the game comes out, only face cards are left showing: a gallery full of pictures. The Aces are not needed and are thrown out.

• Players: 1
• You need: two standard 52-card decks shuffled together (104 cards), no jokers.
• Time: about 20 minutes per game.

The parts of the layout

• Gallery: three rows of eight places. Each place holds a small pile. Every row has its own start card and its own sequence:

Each pile stays in one suit: on the 2♥ only the 5♥ fits, then the 8♥, then the J♥. - Reserve piles: a row of eight piles below the gallery. The top card of each is available (free to be played). - Stock: the rest of the cards, face down. From it you deal new rows onto the reserve piles. - Ace pile: a place at the side for the eight Aces, which are out of play.

Setup

1. Shuffle both decks together.
2. Deal three rows of eight cards face up: the gallery. Cards land there at random, so most of them will be in the wrong place at first.
3. Deal one more row of eight face up below it: the reserve piles.
4. Put the remaining 72 cards face down to one side as the stock.

Playing

There are no turns – you make one move after another, in any order you like. You always move one card at a time.

1. Aces out: whenever an Ace is available – anywhere in the gallery or on top of a reserve pile – put it on the Ace pile. It is out of play. An Ace taken from the gallery leaves a gap.
2. Filling a gap: a gap in the gallery may only be filled with the start card of its row – a 2 in the top row, a 3 in the middle row, a 4 in the bottom row.
3. Building: on a pile whose bottom card is the right start card for its row, you may put the card of the same suit that is three higher. On the 3♦ in the middle row goes the 6♦, then the 9♦, then the Q♦. A pile is finished with four cards and a face card on top.
4. Where the cards come from: the top card of any reserve pile, or the top card of any place in the gallery. So a card that lies in the wrong place – a 3 in the top row, say – can move to where it belongs. Its old place becomes a gap.
5. Wrong start, no building: a card that lies alone in the wrong row can't be built on. The 9♣ in the top row of the example is just waiting to move onto a 6♣ in the middle row.

Empty reserve piles: when a reserve pile is used up, fill it at once with the top card of the stock.

New cards: when you can make no more moves, deal a new row of eight cards from the stock, one face up on each reserve pile. Overlap them so you can see which cards lie underneath.

Stock used up: once the stock is empty, you may put any available card into an empty reserve pile. That helps to dig out buried cards at the end.

Example: In the deal above, first put the A♦ (middle row) and the A♣ (reserve) on the Ace pile, and refill the empty reserve pile from the stock. The gap in the middle row needs a 3: the 3♠ from the top row moves in. That leaves a gap in the top row, which needs a 2 – the 2♠ from the bottom row fits. Its gap takes a 4: the 4♠ from the reserve (refill that reserve pile from the stock). Now the 5♣ (middle row) goes on the 2♣, the 7♣ (middle row) on the 4♣, and the 5♥ from the reserve on the 2♥.

Winning

You win when all 24 places show a finished pile – Jacks in the top row, Queens in the middle, Kings at the bottom – and the eight Aces lie on the Ace pile. If the stock is used up and you can make no more moves, the game is lost.

Tips for beginners

• Before you deal new cards, check every move: once a card is covered on a reserve pile, it may stay buried for a long time.
• Gaps are precious. A gap is useless until you have the right start card for it, so think about which start cards you can see before you empty a place.
• There are two cards of each kind. If a 5♥ lies over the other 5♥ on one reserve pile, the top one must go on a 2♥ first – plan for that.
• Don't hurry to play Jacks, Queens and Kings: they only finish piles and free nothing underneath. Play them when they cover a card you need.
• Low cards buried under high ones are the usual cause of defeat. Aim to get all eight 2s, 3s and 4s into the gallery early.

Variants

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

• Royal Parade: take the eight Aces out before you shuffle. Empty reserve piles are not refilled; they stay empty until the next row is dealt. This is the older form of the game (see History) and much harder – Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance at about 1 in 30.
• Last row backwards: Ernest Bergholt (1917) allowed you to deal the last row of the stock from right to left instead, if that keeps an important card from being covered.
• Mod3: you may put any available card into an empty reserve place at any time, not only after the stock is used up; empty reserve places are not refilled from the stock. This is the version in the KDE program KPatience.