Trefoil Solitaire

Trefoil Solitaire is a type of solitaire game which is played by a single player. It is a challenging game that is similar to the Forty Thieves and uses 52- card deck. It is a variation of La Belle Lucie, and it is much different from the classic solitaire in the number of piles because classic solitaire has seven piles while trefoil solitaire has 16 piles. The aces to be on the piles in classic solitaire while for trefoil solitaire, they are already on the foundation.

Trefoil Set Up

Trefoil Solitaire starts by four aces, which are removed from a deck and are placed on the four foundations. The remaining forty-eight cards are in 16 piles of 3 cards each where the top card is the only card that can be moved. At the beginning of the game, each foundation has all 3 cards facing up. The foundation must be built up by suit and the piles brought down by suit. When a player gets stuck, he is allowed to shuffle or redial the cards in the piles up to two times only. When the reshuffle (redeal) button is x'ed out, then you cannot reshuffle the cards again. However, you get one extra grace move where you are allowed to move any single card to the middle of a pile.

How To Play Trefoil

The foundations in trefoil solitaire are built in ascending order, i.e. from the Ace to the King being the top card, and they should be of the same suit. The piles can only be moved to other piles or the foundation, and if a pile is empty, it can't be refilled again. The cards are moved to other plies or the foundation by dragging the cards with your mouse, and only one card can be moved at a time. You can only pick the top card in a pile, and each card has one possible target that it can be played on, which means that the card can only be moved once during a deal. When all cards have been removed from the pile, the space can't be refilled with any card.

To win trefoil solitaire, the player must arrange all the 52 cards to the foundations. Every card that is played to the foundation will be scored. The game is won when all the cards are at the foundation, hence there should be four completed foundations with each having 13 cards.

Trefoil Tips

If you don't have any option, you can reshuffle all the cards on the piles by pressing the reshuffle button, and this will result to new piles. Remember this can only be done twice. It is good to use the redeal first as it will help draw some cards to the foundation and save the draw option for the last deal so that you can use it when you are stuck and have no other options.