Introduction: Klondike Solitaire is perhaps the most popular solitaire card game around. It is easy to play, very relaxing, and doesn't take a lot of time per game.
Agnes Bernauer is similar to the Klondike Deal 1 solitaire game, with a couple of interesting twists. The game has 7 reserve piles, and the rank of the start of the foundation piles is determined randomly at the beginning of the game.
Goal: Build up all cards in sequence, from ace to king, on the four foundation piles.
Time: About 5-6 minutes
Wins: Sometimes
Decks: One Deck
Layout: After shuffling, the first card in the deck is placed in the first foundation pile. The rank of this card is the beginning rank of each foundation pile. So if the first card dealt is a 5 of clubs, then all foundation piles must start with a 5. Three other spaces are left open for the other foundation piles.
Then 7 tableau piles are dealt in the following way. For the first row, a card is dealt in the first column face up, and then a card is dealt in each of columns 2 through 7 face down. For the second row, a card is dealt in the second column face up on top of the face-down card already there, then a card is dealt in each of columns 3 to 7 face down on top of the card already there. For the third row, the same is done, starting with the third column. This is continued in the same way for rows 4 through 7. There will have been dealt 28 cards in 7 columns, with 1 card in the first, or left-most column, and 7 cards in the 7th, or right-most column.
One card is dealt to each of seven reserve piles located at the bottom of the screen.
The rest of the deck is placed in the stock pile. Here is a sample initial layout of an Agnes Bernauer game.
Play: The goal in Agnes Bernauer is to build each foundation pile in suit from the beginning rank to the end rank. The beginning rank is determined randomly at the beginning of each game. The first card is dealt to the first foundation pile. The rank of this card determines the beginning rank of each of the foundation piles. So, if a 5 of clubs is dealt to the first foundation pile, then the other foundation piles must start with a five also. The foundation piles are then built up to the king, and wrap around to end at one rank below the starting card rank. In this case that would be a 4 of clubs.
The face-up cards on the tableau, and the top card in each of the reserve piles at the bottom of the screen, are available for play. In order to build up the foundation, you need to uncover the face-down cards in the tableau, to get them into play. You do this by moving tableau cards onto the foundation and onto other columns in the tableau. Cards on the tableau are build down in alternating colors. So, in this way, either red queen may be placed onto either black king. And, either the red six of hearts or the red six of diamonds may be placed onto either the black 7 of spades or the black 7 of clubs. These face-up cards are overlapped, so that you can see what they are. The high card is not necessarily a king and the low card is not necessarily an ace, so a king may be placed on an ace in Agnes Bernauer. When a face-down card becomes uncovered, and hence, becomes the top-most card in a column , that face-down card is now turned face-up and is now available for play. Cards in sequence on a column in the tableau may be moved as a unit. So a sequence consisting of a 9 of clubs, 8 of hearts, 7 of clubs, 6 of diamonds, 5 of spades, 4 of hearts, and 3 of spades may, as a single unit, be moved onto a red 10, if available.
When no more moves can be made on the tableau and foundation, seven cards are dealt from the stock pile (by clicking on it), one to each reserve pile. If any of those cards can be placed onto the foundation, do so. (Tip: It is generally a good idea to build up the four foundation piles roughly evenly. If one foundation pile has more than a couple more cards in it than the other foundation piles, the foundation cards may not be available to be used in the tableau for building sequences, moving cards, and uncovering the face-down cards.) Klondike is one of the few solitaire games where cards may be taken off the foundation and placed on the tableau. (Although some say this is not a valid rule for any form of Klondike, most allow it.) The top card from any of the reserve piles may also be placed onto a tableau column, if that card follows a valid sequence. Gaps in the tableau may be filled with any card which has one rank lower than the starting rank of the foundation piles. So, as in the above example, if the first card dealt is a 5 of clubs, then gaps must be filled with a 4 or a sequence that starts with a 4. Creating a gap, and getting the face-down cards uncovered and available for play is usually a good move in this Klondike solitaire game.
Continue playing in this manner. Move cards from the reserve piles to the tableau and the foundation, and from the tableau to the foundation and within the tableau, and occasionally from the foundation back to the tableau, trying to uncover face-down tableau cards and move them to the foundation. When the stock pile is empty, in this variation of Klondike, there are no redeals.
Reserve: Agnes Bernauer has seven reserve piles. The initial deal places one card in each reserve pile. Each subsequent deal places a card on top of any existing card in each reserve pile, or onto an empty reserve pile.
The top card in each reserve pile is available for play onto the tableau or the foundation.
Gaps in the reserve are filled only by a deal from the stock pile.
Gaps: Gaps in the tableau in Klondike are made when all of the cards are moved out of a column of the tableau. When this happens, the gap may only be filled with any card which has one rank lower than the starting rank of the foundation piles (or a valid sequence starting with this card).
Gaps in the reserve piles may only be filled by dealing from the stock.
Redeals: In this variation of Klondike, there are no redeals.