Double Solitaire Rules

Double Solitaire turns the famously solitary card game into a genuine head-to-head race — two players each work their own Klondike-style layout, but they're both racing toward the same four shared piles in the middle, which means speed and awareness of the other player's progress matter just as much as your own deal ever did in single-player solitaire.

Setting up two full games

Each player uses their own complete 52-card deck, dealt into their own separate Klondike-style tableau of seven columns (one card in the first column, two in the second, and so on, with the top card of each column face-up) and their own separate stock pile. Between the two players, in the middle of the table, sits one shared set of four foundation piles — one for each suit, built up starting from ace and running through king.

Playing

Both players play simultaneously and continuously, in real time rather than taking turns — each building down alternating colors within their own tableau, moving cards from their own stock (commonly flipped one or three at a time, as in ordinary Klondike) to their own tableau, and sending any playable ace or sequential card to the shared foundations in the middle the moment it's available. There's no waiting for the other player to finish a move; whoever spots a playable card first plays it first.

The race for the foundations

Because both players are feeding cards into the same four foundation piles, the two decks' suits interact directly — if your opponent needs the 6 of hearts to continue their own hearts foundation and you happen to uncover it first, you can play it to the shared pile before they ever get the chance, denying them that specific card in their sequence entirely (they'll need to wait for a different route, or for the other deck's copy of the required card, later in the layout). This shared-foundation pressure is the entire reason Double Solitaire plays so much faster and more tensely than solving a solitaire layout alone.

Ending and scoring

A round ends when either player empties their tableau and stock entirely, or, more commonly, when neither player has any further legal move available in their own layout. Scoring is based on how many cards each player personally contributed to the shared foundation piles — since both decks' copies of each rank are mixed into the same four piles, a player who played more of their own cards to the foundations before the game stalled out is the winner of that round, regardless of who "cleared" their own tableau first.

Strategy: playing fast without playing carelessly

Because speed matters, there's a real temptation to slap cards down the instant they look playable — but a rushed move that blocks a card you'll need two turns later in your own tableau can cost more time than it saves. Strong Double Solitaire players scan their own layout for cards that specifically unblock other cards underneath before automatically sending every playable card straight to the shared foundations, especially early in a round when the foundations aren't under much pressure yet.

Variants: more than two players, and separate foundation sets

Some groups play with more than two decks and more than two players simultaneously working toward the same shared foundation piles, which sharpens the race considerably since more players are competing for the same limited foundation slots at once. A gentler variant gives each player their own separate set of four foundation piles rather than sharing one, removing the direct competition for specific cards and turning the game back into a parallel, simultaneous solo game rather than a true race — a reasonable choice for players who want the social setting of playing together without the sharper competitive edge the shared-pile version creates.

Origins: a natural two-player extension of Klondike

Double Solitaire has no separately documented invention story — it's a straightforward extension of ordinary single-player Klondike solitaire, adapted the moment two people wanted to play together rather than take turns watching one deal. Its real appeal is functional rather than historical: it turns a game built for exactly one person into something two people can play at the same table, competing directly rather than comparing separate solved layouts afterward.

Questions that come up mid-game

If both players try to play a card to the same foundation slot at literally the same instant, who gets it? Whoever's hand physically lands the card on the pile first — there's no formal tiebreak beyond simple observation, and most groups simply agree that a genuinely simultaneous placement is rare enough not to need a house rule beyond common sense.

Can a player look at or use cards from their opponent's tableau? No — each player's tableau and stock pile are strictly their own; only the four shared foundation piles in the middle are common ground between the two layouts.