Josephine Solitaire

How to Play the Forty Thieves variation

Click on the screen shot of the game Josephine from Pretty Good Solitaire to download the 30 day free trial version.

Dear Solitaire Player,

Josephine is a variation of the classic game Forty Thieves.

My version of Josephine in Pretty Good Solitaire allows you to play offline, full screen, with complete undo and my unique right click quick move. It's the best way to play solitaire!

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How to Play Josephine Solitaire

Josephine is a two deck game. At the start of the game 40 cards (the 40 thieves) are dealt out in 10 piles of 4 cards each with all 40 cards face up and visible. The remaining cards form the stock and turned over one card at a time to a waste pile. When Aces appear in the play they are moved up to found the 8 foundation piles, which are built up in suit in the usual way. The game is won when all the cards are moved up to the foundations.

Among the 40 card tableau, building is down by suit. Groups of cards may be moved as a unit if they are in sequence down by suit. This is where Josephine differs from Forty Thieves, which does not allow group moving. Nevertheless, it is stll important to create empty spaces as quickly as possible, and also a good idea to keep an empty space or two available so that cards can be more easily moved around.

Josephine is considerably easier than Forty Thieves. An average player can win about 25% of the time, while really good players can score considerably better than that.