Rules for Aces Square

Family Carpet
Categories Short, Simple, Unusual
Variants
Also known as

Wins aren’t frequent, but careful play helps. Aces Square offers unique and interesting cardplay in a small and short game.

Layout

Shuffle the deck, and deal sixteen cards face up in a 4x4 grid, with no overlaps. These are the tableaus. Keep the rest of the deck in your hand; you will be dealing from it into empty spaces in the tableau as you play. A discard pile starts out empty.

Play

Discard pairs of cards, removing them from the tableau to the discard pile. You may discard any pair of cards that share a row or column, and that match in suit. Immediately after discarding, refill each of the two empty tableau spaces with a face up card from the deck.

Exception: Aces in the tableau may not be moved or discarded.

In Solitaire Till Dawn, drag a card and drop it onto a matching card. Both cards will automatically move to the discard pile, and their tableau spaces will automatically refill from the deck.

Goal

The goal is to discard all the cards except for the four immovable Aces.

Tips

There are six pairs of cards in each suit. Keep track of how many pairs of each suit you have discarded; when there are only one or two left, try to make spaces in places where the last pairs can be matched. You’ll have to hope that the new cards dealt from the deck will land in the right spaces, but your chances of success will improve if you stay aware of what cards are left in the deck.