Windmill

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

Windmill (also called Propeller) is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) for two decks, named after its layout: an Ace in the middle with eight cards around it like the sails of a windmill. You build one big pile of 52 cards on the centre Ace – four times from Ace up to King – and four small piles on Kings, each from King down to Ace. Suits don't matter at all, only ranks. It plays fast and needs little thought, but it is won only about one time in ten.

• Players: 1
• You need: two standard 52-card decks without jokers (104 cards), shuffled together, and a clear space in the middle of the table.
• Time: about 5 minutes per game.

Card order

From lowest to highest:

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

On the centre pile the order goes round: after a King comes an Ace again, then a 2, and so on.

The parts of the layout

• Centre foundation: the Ace in the middle. It is built up, regardless of suit: A, 2, 3 … Q, K, then A, 2 … again, until it holds 52 cards (four rounds of A to K).
• King foundations: four spaces in the corners between the sails. The first four Kings that become available go there. Each is built down, regardless of suit, from King to Ace (13 cards).
• Sails: eight single cards around the centre – two above, two below, two to the left, two to the right. They are the reserve: all eight are always available.
• Stock: the face-down rest of the cards.
• Waste pile: where you put stock cards you can't use yet. Its top card is available.

Setup

1. Take any one Ace out of the two decks and put it face up in the middle: the centre foundation.
2. Shuffle the other 103 cards. Deal eight cards face up as sails: two in a line above the Ace, two below, two to the left and two to the right.
3. The remaining 95 cards are the stock, face down.

Playing

1. Start with the sails: play any sail card that fits – a 2 on the centre Ace, a King into a corner. You could put the 2♣ on the A♦ and the K♠ into a corner.
2. Fill gaps in the sails at once with the top card of the waste pile – or, if the waste pile is empty, with the top card of the stock.
3. Turn the stock one card at a time. Play the card to a foundation if it fits; otherwise put it face up on the waste pile.
4. Available cards: the eight sails and the top card of the waste pile may be played to any foundation where they fit.
5. Kings: the first four Kings go to the corners. Later Kings can only go on the centre pile, on top of a Queen.
6. Borrowing from a King foundation: you may move the top card of a King foundation onto the centre pile. After such a move, the next card on the centre pile must come from the sails, the waste pile or the stock – not from another King foundation. The four Kings at the bottom of the corner piles never move to the centre.

Example: The centre pile shows a 6. A King foundation has come down to the 7, and a sail shows an 8. Move the 7 from the King foundation onto the centre pile, then the 8 from the sail onto the 7. Fill the gap in the sails with the top card of the waste pile.

There is no redeal: you go through the stock only once.

Winning

You win when all 104 cards are on the foundations: 52 on the centre pile and 13 on each King foundation. If the stock is used up and no move is left, the game is lost. Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance of winning at about 1 in 10.

Tips for beginners

• Build the centre pile at every chance – it needs 52 cards and is the hard part.
• Don't move sail cards to the King foundations until you need the space to save a card from the waste pile.
• Keep a wide mix of ranks in the sails and on the King foundations, so the centre pile can eat several cards in a row.
• Don't make gaps too quickly, or the sails soon hold three or four cards of the same rank.

Variants

All optional:

• Kings from the start: take out four Kings as well as the Ace at the start and put them in the corners straight away (the version in Professor Hoffmann's 1892 book).
• Free Kings: allow the corner Kings themselves to move to the centre pile too. Morehead and Mott-Smith suggest this if the game proves too hard.
• Reversed Windmill: start with a King in the middle and build it down; the corner piles start with the first four Aces and are built up.