La Belle Lucie

How To Play La Belle Lucie

A one-deck patience played in little fans — with two redeals to save you.

The idea

The whole deck is spread into small three-card fans. Your job is to build the four foundations up by suit, each from the A to the K, by freeing cards from the fans.

Two variants

Trefoil (the default) — the four Aces start already on the foundations, and the rest deal into a tidy 16 fans of three. A little friendlier.
La Belle Lucie (classic) — the Aces are in play, and the deck deals into 17 fans of three plus one single card.

Switch between them in the gear, along with the mercy move and a four-colour deck.

Moving cards

Only the exposed card — the one on the right end of a fan — is available, and it moves one at a time.
On the foundations, build up in suit: A 2 3 …
On the fans, build down in suit — a 7♥ goes onto an 8♥.
Tap a card to send it straight to a foundation, or drag it onto a fan.

The catch: once a fan is emptied, the space stays empty — you can't move a card into it. That's what makes the game bite.

Redeals

Stuck? Press Redeal: every card not yet on a foundation is gathered up, shuffled, and dealt back out into fresh fans of three. You get two redeals per game — spend them wisely.

The mercy move

With the mercy option switched on, once both redeals are gone you get one last lifeline: tap any single buried card to pull it free and play it. You can only do this once.

Buttons

Hint — points out a move (or suggests a redeal).
Auto — sweeps every ready card up to the foundations.
Undo — steps back, redeals included.
New game — deals a fresh spread.

Tip: don't rush cards onto the foundations. A low card buried in a fan can trap everything above it, so it often pays to free your deeply buried low cards first — and think before you empty a fan, since that space is gone for good.