Card Game Rules

Patience · Game 213 of 388 ♣

Royal Cotillion

Build every suit up in twos – odd cards on the Aces, even cards on the 2s – until each King stands beside his Queen for the dance.

Players
1
Duration
15 min
Age
10+
Difficulty
medium
Cards
2 × 52 cards, no jokers
Skill – Luck
SkillLuck
Everyone for themselves – Lots of interaction
Everyone for themselvesLots of interaction
Simple – Complex
SimpleComplex
Quick – Long
QuickLong

Mood focused

Collections: Solitaire games · Two decks

Quick rules

  • Goal: all 104 cards on 8 foundations: one A and one 2 per suit, built up in suit by twos.
  • Setup: left wing 12 cards face up (3 rows of 4), right wing 16 cards (4 rows of 4). Rest = stock.
  • A free Ace or 2 starts a foundation; the second ones are built on like any card.
  • Left wing: only the bottom card of each column is free; gaps stay empty.
  • Right wing: all free; fill gaps at once from the waste (else stock).
  • Cards go only to foundations.
  • Turn the stock one by one; unusable cards to the waste (top card free). No redeal.
  • Stuck: lost.

Cheat sheet

Foundation order

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

Tips

  • Example: ♥ piles at 5♥ (Ace pile) and 4♥ (2 pile); waste 6♥, right wing 7♥: play 6♥ on 4♥, 7♥ on 5♥.
  • Play from the left wing whenever it frees another card.
  • Watch for blocks there: a card needed early under a same-suit card needed much later.
  • Don't play from the right wing just because you can – wait for a waste card worth saving.
  • Chance about 1 in 5. Gavotte: 16 cards per wing; you choose the free wing and the two starting ranks.

Full rules

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

Overview

Royal Cotillion is a two-deck patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) named after an old ballroom dance. You collect all 104 cards on eight piles: in each suit one pile starts with an Ace and one with a 2, and both are built up in steps of two. If the game comes out, each pile ends with a King or a Queen, so every King of a suit stands next to his Queen – the couples are ready for the dance. Two groups of cards, the wings, feed the piles: one is used up card by card, the other is refilled all the time.

  • Players: 1
  • You need: two standard 52-card decks without jokers (104 cards), shuffled together.
  • Time: about 15 minutes per game.

The parts of the layout

  • Foundations: the eight piles where all cards end up – one Ace and one 2 of each suit, set in two columns in the middle of the table as soon as they come into play. At the start these places are empty.
  • Left wing: 12 face-up cards on the left, in three rows of four. Only the bottom card of each of its four columns (the one nearest to you) is free; when it has been played, the card above it becomes free. Gaps here are never filled.
  • Right wing: 16 face-up cards on the right, in four rows of four. Every card in it is free. Each gap is filled at once.
  • Stock: the face-down pile of the remaining cards.
  • Waste: the face-up pile where you put stock cards you can't use. Its top card is free.

Setup

  1. Shuffle both decks together.
  2. Deal 12 cards face up in three rows of four on the left: the left wing.
  3. Leave room for two columns of four cards in the middle.
  4. Deal 16 cards face up in four rows of four on the right: the right wing.
  5. Put the rest face down as the stock.
9♣9♣♣K♥K♥K5♦5♦♦J♠J♠J3♠3♠♠Q♣Q♣Q7♥7♥♥10♦10♦♦6♥6♥♥8♠8♠♠4♣4♣♣K♦K♦KLeft wingA2A2A2A2Foundations6♣6♣♣J♥J♥J3♦3♦♦9♠9♠♠Q♠Q♠Q5♥5♥♥8♦8♦♦10♣10♣♣K♣K♣K4♥4♥♥7♠7♠♠J♦J♦J10♥10♥♥Q♦Q♦Q6♠6♠♠5♣5♣♣Right wing76StockWaste
Royal Cotillion – the layout at the start

The Aces and 2s are only placed when they are free; the order of the suits does not matter.

Building the foundations

As soon as a free Ace or 2 turns up, you may start a foundation with it – one Ace and one 2 of each suit. The second Ace and 2 of each suit are built on later like any other card.

Foundations are built up in the same suit in steps of two. After the King the count goes on with the lowest missing cards:

Foundation Order
Ace A 3 5 7 9 J K 2 4 6 8 10 Q
2 2 4 6 8 10 Q A 3 5 7 9 J K

So each Ace pile ends with a Queen and each 2 pile with a King.

Playing

Cards only ever move to the foundations – never from one wing to the other or within a wing. You may play:

  • the bottom card of any column in the left wing,
  • any card of the right wing,
  • the top card of the waste.

When a card leaves the right wing, fill the gap at once with the top card of the waste or, if there is no waste yet, with the top card of the stock.

When you can't or don't want to play any more, turn the top card of the stock face up. Play it to a foundation if it fits; otherwise put it face up on the waste. The stock is gone through only once – there is no redeal.

Example: The foundations show 5♥ (on an Ace) and 4♥ (on a 2). The waste shows the 6♥ and the right wing holds the 7♥. Play the 6♥ onto the 4♥ and the 7♥ onto the 5♥. Fill the gap in the right wing with the new top card of the waste.

Winning

You win when all 104 cards lie on the foundations, each King beside the Queen of his suit. If the stock is used up and no card can be played, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance of winning at 1 in 5.

Tips for beginners

  • Play from the left wing whenever doing so frees another card – those cards can only leave by going up.
  • Watch for blocks in the left wing: a card that is needed early, lying under a card of the same suit that is needed much later.
  • Don't play from the right wing just because you can. A gap there is filled from the waste – wait until the waste has a card you would like to keep safe.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

  • Gavotte: deal 16 cards to each wing. Choose which wing is fully free and which is played only from the bottom. You also choose the two ranks that start the foundations (for example 6s and 7s) and build up in twos until each pile holds 13 cards.

Background & history

  • Family: Patience – two-deck game with reserve; foundations built up in twos
  • Origin: 19th century; described in Dick's Games of Patience (New York, 1883)
  • Also known as: Lords and Ladies
  • Related games: Gavotte, Odd and Even, Cotillion (Contradance), Quadrille (Captured Queens)

Royal Cotillion is a classic of the 19th century. It is described in Dick's Games of Patience, published by Dick & Fitzgerald in New York in 1883. That book already explains the name: the Aces carry the "king packets" and the 2s the "queen packets", and each 2 is placed beside its Ace so that "when the couples of the Cotillion are finally formed, each king, as he faces towards the centre of the Cotillion, will find his queen on his right hand". A cotillion was a popular ballroom dance of the 18th and 19th centuries. Wikipedia mentions the little-known name Lords and Ladies, from Sloane Lee and Gabriel Packard's 100 Best Solitaire Games.

Building up in steps of two – odd cards first, then the even ones – is shared with Odd and Even, which uses a smaller reserve, and with Cotillion and Quadrille, which have no reserve and are played almost entirely by luck. In Royal Cotillion the two wings give you real choices: the left wing is slowly used up, while the right wing works like a reserve that the waste keeps refilling.

Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games, 1949) give the game about 15 minutes and a 1-in-5 chance of winning. They also describe Gavotte, a variant with two equal wings in which you choose the starting ranks yourself.

Sources