Guide
How to Play Crescent Solitaire
Crescent Solitaire is a two-deck patience game. Eight foundations build up and down, sixteen face-up piles feed them one card at a time, and three reshuffles rescue a locked board.
Play Crescent SolitaireThe objective
Move all 104 cards to the foundations
Crescent Solitaire is played with two standard 52-card decks. Eight foundation piles sit in the middle of the board: four are built up from Ace to King and four are built down from King to Ace, one of each per suit. You win when every card has been moved to a foundation.
Between the deal and the win, the work is untangling sixteen face-up piles when only the top card of each can move. Nothing is hidden, so there is no luck after the deal — only planning, plus three reshuffles for when a board locks.
The game is free, runs in the browser, and needs no account. Open the board when you want to play; use this guide for the rules and the habits that win more games.
The deal
Sixteen piles around eight foundations
One Ace and one King of each suit are set out first: the Aces start the four ascending foundations and the Kings start the four descending foundations. The remaining 96 cards are shuffled and dealt face up into sixteen tableau piles of six — eight in a row above the foundations and eight in a row below, forming the crescent.
Every deal is a fresh shuffle. Some are comfortably winnable and some are not, and you cannot always tell which is which — undo and reshuffles are how you find out.
Controls
Tap, drag, or use the keyboard
Every method moves the same cards. Pick whichever fits the device in your hand.
Mouse and touch
Tap a card
Tap the top card of a pile. If it can go to a foundation it goes straight there. Otherwise it is picked up and every legal destination lights up — tap one to drop the card, or tap the card again to put it back.
Mouse and touch
Drag and drop
Drag a top card onto a tableau pile or a foundation. Dropping anywhere else returns it. Drag works with a finger on phones and tablets as well as with a mouse.
Keyboard
N · U · H · R · M
N deals a new game, U undoes the last move, H shows a hint, R reshuffles the tableau, and M mutes or unmutes sound. Escape drops a picked-up card. Every top card is also a focusable button: Tab to it and press Enter or Space.
Every page
Header Play button
Play in the site header scrolls to the board and deals a fresh game, so you can jump in from any page of the site.
The loop
Four ideas to play by
Reading the board and choosing among these four is the whole game.
- 1
Read the deal
Crescent uses two decks, 104 cards. One Ace of each suit starts an ascending foundation and one King of each suit starts a descending foundation — eight foundations in a row across the middle. The other 96 cards are dealt face up into 16 tableau piles of six, eight above the foundations and eight below.
- 2
Move one card at a time
Only the top card of a pile can move. On the tableau, place a card on another pile whose top card is the same suit and exactly one rank higher or lower — a 7 of hearts goes on a 6 or an 8 of hearts. Ace and King count as neighbours, so an Ace can sit on a King and a King on an Ace. Empty piles stay empty.
- 3
Build up and down
Ascending foundations build 2, 3, 4 … up to the King. Descending foundations build Queen, Jack, 10 … down to the Ace. Each suit has one of each, and because there are two copies of every card, one 7 of spades goes up and the other comes down. A top card can also hop from one foundation to the other foundation of its suit when the rank fits.
- 4
Reshuffle when stuck
If the tableau locks up, use a reshuffle: every card left on the tableau is gathered, shuffled, and redealt across the 16 piles. You get three per game, and you keep going with the foundations exactly as they were. Move all 104 cards to the foundations to win.
Rules
Every rule that decides a move
The objective
Move all 104 cards onto the eight foundations: four built A → K and four built K → A, one of each per suit.
Tableau building
A top card may move onto another tableau pile if it matches the suit of that pile’s top card and differs by exactly one rank. Ace and King are treated as adjacent, so chains can wrap around the corner (… Q, K, A, 2 …). Only single cards move, and an empty pile cannot receive a card.
Foundations
An ascending foundation of a suit accepts the next higher rank; a descending foundation accepts the next lower rank. A card can move from one foundation to the other foundation of the same suit if it fits, but a foundation can never be emptied of its starting Ace or King.
Reshuffles, hints, and undo
Each game gives you three reshuffles and five hints. Undo is unlimited and free. There is no time limit — the clock only records your best time.
Winning and getting stuck
You win when the 104th card reaches a foundation. If no legal move remains and you have no reshuffles left, the game ends and reports how many cards made it home. Your most cards home, best time, fewest moves, and win streak are saved on your device.
Common mistakes
Why winnable games get lost
Rushing the middle ranks home
A 7 sent up can strand the 6 that needed to sit under it on the tableau. Push the middle ranks to a foundation only when it frees a pile, not just because it is legal.
Building long same-suit chains on one pile
A chain like 9-8-7 of hearts on one pile looks tidy but only its top card can ever move. Whatever is beneath the chain is locked until you dig the whole chain out one card at a time.
Spending reshuffles early
Three reshuffles is generous but finite. Using one while productive moves remain throws away a reset you may need in the endgame.
Ignoring undo
Undo is free. Treat a doubtful move as an experiment: make it, see what it opens, and roll it back if the board did not improve.
- Look for the two copies of every card. Each rank exists twice per suit — decide which copy is going up and which is going down before you commit either.
- Send low and high cards home early. Aces, 2s, Kings and Queens are the first cards of the foundations and rarely help the tableau once they are exposed.
- Pick the move that uncovers something. Between two legal moves, choose the one that reveals a card you can play next.
- Do not bury a card you need. Stacking a 6 of clubs on a 7 of clubs hides whatever is under the 6 and blocks that pile until you move it again.
- Use foundation-to-foundation moves as a release valve. Moving a top card across from the ascending to the descending pile of its suit (or back) can free a stuck tableau card.
- Save reshuffles for a real lock. A reshuffle redeals everything on the tableau, so use it when no productive move is left rather than early.
- Use undo to explore. Undo is unlimited, so try a risky chain, look at what it opens, and roll it back if it does not help.
- Count what is left. When one suit has few cards on the tableau, you can plan its last runs exactly.
Where you can play
Same game on phone and desktop
crescentsolitaire.app runs in any modern browser with no app to install. Progress stays on the device you played on.
Desktop browsers
Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari all work. Drag with the mouse, click to send a card home, and use N, U, H, R, and M for the common actions.
Phones and tablets
The board scales to the width of the screen with all 16 piles and 8 foundations in view, so no scrolling or zooming is needed. Tap or drag with a finger; controls sit right under the board.
Progress on this device
Games won, win rate, best time, fewest moves, most cards home, win streak, and your sound preference are stored in your browser’s local storage. Nothing is sent to a server, and clearing site data resets it.
Still stuck on a rule? Read the Crescent Solitaire FAQ or jump in and play.
Play Crescent Solitaire free