Cheery Chimp

Forty Thieves is a classic patience (solitaire) card game that emerged in the 19th century and is generally associated with the family of games played with two decks of cards. Its name refers to the game's distinctive opening layout of 40 cards, which are dealt into ten tableau piles of four cards each.

The game is traditionally played with two standard 52-card decks, giving the player 104 cards in total. After the forty-card tableau is dealt, the remaining cards form a stock. The objective is to build eight foundation piles, one for each suit in each deck, from Ace through King. Unlike many solitaire games, Forty Thieves allows cards on the tableau to be built downward by suit, making the game considerably more restrictive than games such as Klondike.

Forty Thieves belongs to the large family of European patience games that became popular during the 19th century, when solitaire was increasingly played as a recreational pastime rather than merely as a form of fortune-telling or divination. The exact origin and first publication of Forty Thieves are uncertain, and early sources sometimes used different names or described variations with somewhat different rules.

The game's difficulty helped make it a notable member of the solitaire tradition. Because tableau cards must normally be moved onto cards of the same suit, opportunities to rearrange the tableau are limited. Empty tableau spaces can generally be filled only by a single card, rather than by an entire sequence. As a result, careful planning and attention to the order in which cards are exposed are important.

Over time, numerous variations and related games developed from the Forty Thieves pattern. Some change the number of tableau piles, the number of cards dealt to each pile, or the rules governing movement between piles. Josephine, for example, is a well-known variation that permits groups of cards to be moved together under certain conditions. Other descendants and adaptations have appeared under names such as Napoleon at St. Helena, Roosevelt at San Juan, and Big Forty, although the exact rules associated with these names can vary between sources.

Forty Thieves became particularly well suited to computer solitaire collections because its rules are relatively simple to implement while producing challenging games. It has consequently appeared in many digital solitaire programs and websites, where variations of the traditional rules are often offered alongside the original game.

Today, Forty Thieves remains a recognizable classic of the two-deck solitaire family. Its combination of a simple layout, restrictive movement rules, and substantial strategic difficulty has helped preserve it as one of the enduring games of traditional patience.