Aces Up Solitaire
Aces Up deals four cards face up in a row. Whenever two top cards share a suit, the lower one is discarded — Aces rank high. Any top card may move into an empty column. When nothing more can go, deal four more cards from the 48-card stock, one onto each column. You win if the stock runs out with only the four Aces left. It is quick, and mostly luck.
New game deals a fresh shuffle, Hint highlights a legal move, and the three-dot menu at the end of the bar holds redo, auto-finish, today’s deal, the keyboard shortcuts and the rule set.
Your statistics
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- Won
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- Win rate
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- Streak
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- Best streak
- 0
- Best time
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Kept in this browser, on this device only. Abandoning a deal in progress counts as a loss, so the win rate means something.
Today’s deal
Everyone playing Aces Up Solitaire today gets the same deal. It changes at midnight UTC.
Track the month on the daily challenge page.
Replay a deal
Every deal is a pure function of its number, so deal #20260726 is the same shuffle on any device, any time.
Keyboard
- U / Z
- Undo
- R
- Redo
- H
- Hint
- N
- New deal (asks first)
- F
- Full screen
- Space
- Turn the stock
- Esc
- Deselect, or leave full screen
- Deck
- One deck, 52 cards
- Stock
- 48 cards, dealt four at a time
- Columns
- 4, any card fills a gap
- Goal
- Only the four Aces left
How do you play Aces Up solitaire?
Four cards are dealt face up, one to each column, and the other 48 wait face down in the stock. Look at the four top cards. If two of them are the same suit, the lower one goes to the discard pile — tap it. Aces are high, so an Ace outranks a King and can never be discarded itself. Keep discarding until no two top cards share a suit.
An emptied column may take the top card of any other column, which uncovers the card beneath it. When nothing more can move, tap the stock to deal four more cards, one onto each column — the empty ones too. The published procedure puts the discards first, and so does this board: the stock will not deal while a discard is still waiting, and it names the card that can go.
Why is it called Aces Up?
Because the Aces are what is left when you win. No card outranks an Ace, so no Ace can ever be discarded: the four of them stay on the table to the end, and a won game is those four Aces and nothing else. The other 48 cards all have to go. The game is also called Idiot's Delight and Firing Squad.
What should you put in an empty column?
Filling an empty column is the only real decision in Aces Up — the discards are compulsory, and they come out the same whichever order you take them in. Work down this list:
| First choice | Why |
|---|---|
| A card whose move uncovers a discard | The card underneath goes at once, and one card fewer is buried. |
| An Ace lying on other cards | An Ace can never be discarded, so the bottom of a column is the only place it stops being in the way. |
| The top card of the tallest column | That column has the most cards buried, and the next deal will bury them deeper. |
Fill the gap before you deal. The deal drops a card into an empty column anyway; moving one there yourself first uncovers a card that would otherwise have been buried by it.
How often can you win Aces Up?
Rarely — the stock decides most games. Played the way the Hint button plays, taking every discard and filling each empty column by the list above, 22 of the first 1,000 deals here come out: about one in 45. You cannot see the stock, so no amount of care changes that much. A game takes a minute or two, which is the point: deal again.
How do you get better at aces up?
- Put Aces at the bottom of columnsAn Ace can never be discarded, so an Ace lying on other cards buries them for the rest of the game. An empty column is the only way to lift it off.
- Fill the gap before you dealThe deal puts a card into an empty column whether you use it or not. Moving a card there first uncovers one more card for nothing.
- Dig the tallest columnWhen the choice is otherwise even, move the top card of the tallest column: it has the most cards buried under it, and each deal adds another.
- Never spend a gap on a lone cardMoving a column's only card into another empty column uncovers nothing — it only changes which cards the next deal lands on. Fill a gap from a column with cards underneath.
Aces Up Solitaire questions people ask
- Can you discard an Ace in Aces Up?
- No. Aces rank high and no card outranks them, so an Ace can never be discarded. Winning means finishing with all four Aces on the table and everything else gone.
- What can go into an empty column in Aces Up?
- The top card of any other column. Moving it is optional, but it is almost always worth doing before the next deal, because the deal puts a card there anyway.
- Can you deal from the stock while a discard is available?
- Not on this board. The rules take the discards first and deal only when nothing more can go, so the stock refuses and tells you which card to discard.
- Is Aces Up the same game as Idiot's Delight?
- Yes. Idiot's Delight and Firing Squad are other names for the same four-column game with the same discard rule.
The rules in six lines
- 1Deal four cards face upOne card to each of four columns. The other 48 cards form the stock, face down.
- 2Discard the lower card of a suitA top card goes to the discard pile when another column's top card is a higher card of the same suit. Aces rank high.
- 3Fill an empty column with any top cardWhen a column empties, the top card of any other column may move into it, uncovering the card beneath.
- 4Deal four more when nothing can goOne card from the stock onto every column, empty ones included — but not while a discard is still waiting.
- 5Play until the stock is emptyTwelve deals of four empty the 48-card stock. Keep discarding and filling gaps after the last one.
- 6Win with only the four Aces leftEvery other card has gone to the discard pile. Anything else left on the table is a loss.
The long version, with worked examples and the questions beginners actually ask, is on how to play aces up solitaire.
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