Rules and Complete How-to-Play Guide

Quick Answer: Bisley Solitaire deals all 52 cards to 13 face-up columns. All four Aces start on foundations immediately. As Kings appear and are moved to foundation rows, each suit builds both upward from its Ace and downward from its King until the two sequences meet. Bisley has a win rate of approximately 30–40% and requires careful two-direction foundation management.

Bisley is one of the more intellectually distinctive patience games you will encounter. Rather than the standard patience model of building foundations only from Ace to King, Bisley builds in both directions simultaneously — foundations start with Aces and later Kings join to build downward, and the game is won when the upward and downward sequences in each suit meet at a common card. This bidirectional building creates a fascinating strategic puzzle.

What Is Bisley Solitaire?

Bisley (named after Bisley, a village in Surrey, England known for its national rifle competitions — perhaps a reference to precision play) is a single-deck patience game with all cards visible from the start. It uses 13 tableau columns and two sets of foundation piles: the Ace foundations (building upward) and the King foundations (building downward).

Definition: In Bisley's "bidirectional foundations," each suit has two foundation piles: one starting at Ace and building up (Ace → 2 → 3 ... ) and one starting at King and building down (King → Queen → Jack ...). The game is won when the ascending and descending sequences for each suit meet at a middle card and all 52 cards are placed.

The game is catalogued on [Bisley Solitaire Rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_(game) and appears in classic British patience anthologies. Its combination of full card visibility (like FreeCell) and bidirectional foundations makes it unlike anything in the standard solitaire canon.

Bisley Solitaire Setup

Cards needed: One standard 52-card deck, shuffled.

Layout:

1. Remove all four Aces from the deck and place them in a row to form the first four foundation positions
2. Deal the remaining 48 cards into 13 columns of 4 cards each (48 ÷ 13 is not even... let me verify: 48 cards, 13 columns — the first 9 columns get 4 cards each and the last 4 columns get 3 cards each. 9×4 + 4×3 = 36 + 12 = 48. Correct.)
3. All column cards are face up
4. Kings, when they appear or are freed, can be placed in foundation positions alongside the Aces (but cannot be placed there initially — they must be in the tableau columns first and moved when exposed)

Actually, the most common description is:

1. Remove all four Aces → place as foundations
2. Deal remaining 48 cards into 13 columns of varying lengths (some have 4, some have 3, arranged so columns are visible)
3. Above the Ace foundations, leave space for King foundations (initially empty, will be filled when Kings become available)

Foundation area: 8 piles total — four Ace foundations and four King foundation spaces (empty until Kings are played to them).

How to Play Bisley Solitaire

Objective: Place all 52 cards on the eight foundations. The Ace foundations build upward (Ace → 2 → 3 → ... → Jack) and the King foundations build downward (King → Queen → Jack → ...) until each pair meets in the middle.

Available cards: Only the bottom card of each column (the last card dealt, exposed at the end of the column) is available to play.

Foundation plays:

• Move any available card to an Ace foundation if it is the next required card in that suit's ascending sequence
• Move a King to a King foundation to start a descending sequence for that suit
• Move any available card to a King foundation if it is the next required card in that suit's descending sequence (below the current bottom of the descending pile)

Tableau building: In Bisley, you can move an available card from one column to another. The building rule is: cards build in the same suit, either up or down in rank by one. A 7 of Hearts can be placed on either an 8 of Hearts or a 6 of Hearts in the tableau.

Empty columns: When a column is cleared, that space is gone — you cannot use it as a free space. Some versions allow one card to be placed in an empty column; others do not.

Winning: All 52 cards placed on foundations. Each suit's ascending and descending sequences will have met at a specific meeting-point card (which varies by how cards were distributed).

Where Do the Sequences Meet?

The meeting point in each suit is not predetermined — it depends on which cards end up in the ascending versus descending foundations. For example, in Hearts:

• If Ace foundation progresses to 6 of Hearts (Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• And King foundation progresses to 7 of Hearts (King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7)
• The game would be won when both sequences are complete and contiguous

In practice, you can choose which direction to build — once a 6 is on the Ace foundation and a 7 is available, you can add the 7 to either direction depending on which foundation side has already claimed the 8. Managing this flexibility is part of Bisley's strategic richness.

Bisley Solitaire Strategy

Expose Kings early. Since King foundations must be started by moving a King to its foundation space, and Kings in deep column positions are stuck until everything above them is played, exposing Kings early is a high priority.

Sequence priorities for each suit. Track each suit's progress on both foundation directions. If Hearts has built high from the Ace side (to 7), prioritize moves that free Hearts 8 and higher for the King-side descent. If the two sides are far apart in meeting point, redirect effort to close the gap.

Protect meeting-point flexibility. In the endgame, the card where Ace-side and King-side sequences meet must be playable from either direction. Avoid committing both sides of a suit to the same meeting point unless that card is already accessible.

Use same-suit tableau building carefully. While tableau building (same suit, up or down) helps reorganize columns, it also "commits" cards to specific column positions. Move tableau cards only when doing so uncovers more important cards.

The bidirectional tableau rule is a gift. Being able to build either up or down in the same suit during tableau play is Bisley's most flexible feature. A 7 of Clubs sitting on an 8 of Clubs can be moved to a 6 of Clubs instead — use this to access buried cards that alternating-direction building in other games would block.

See our advanced solitaire strategies guide for broader strategic frameworks applicable to all-visible-card patience games like Bisley.

Win Rate and Difficulty

Bisley is considered a moderate-to-challenging patience game with an estimated win rate of 30–40%. The complete card visibility removes luck from the equation to some extent — every deal is theoretically analyzable from the start. However, the bidirectional foundation building creates complex decision trees that most human players do not fully optimize.

The game is less commonly available on digital platforms than Klondike or FreeCell, but appears in comprehensive patience game applications and on websites specializing in classic card game variants. For players in the United Kingdom — particularly in Surrey and neighboring counties where Bisley the village is located — the game has a degree of local cultural familiarity.

For a comparison to other all-visible patience games, our Streets and Alleys Solitaire guide covers another fully-open tableau variant, while FreeCell remains the gold standard for near-perfect-information solitaire.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do foundations work in Bisley solitaire?

Bisley has two types of foundations per suit — eight foundation piles total. The four Ace foundations start with Aces placed before the game begins and build upward toward Kings. The four King foundations start empty and receive Kings when they are played; they then build downward toward Aces. Both sequences build until they meet at a common card for each suit.

Where do Aces go in Bisley solitaire?

All four Aces are removed from the deck before dealing and placed on foundations at the start of the game. This is one of Bisley's distinctive setup rules. The Ace foundations then build upward (2, 3, 4...) as those cards become available from the tableau columns.

Can you build in both directions in Bisley solitaire?

Yes, in two ways: In the foundations, each suit has both an ascending (Ace → King) and descending (King → Ace) sequence that build toward each other. In the tableau, available cards can be placed on a same-suit card that is either one rank higher or one rank lower — bidirectional tableau building is one of Bisley's unique features.

What is the win rate for Bisley solitaire?

Bisley solitaire has an estimated win rate of 30–40% with strategic play. The complete card visibility makes every position analyzable, but the complexity of managing two foundation directions per suit and the limited tableau maneuvering creates genuine difficulty. Some deals are unwinnable regardless of strategy.

Is Bisley solitaire easy to learn?

The setup is unusual (placing Aces first, managing two foundation directions) but the concept becomes clear quickly once you understand that each suit builds both from Aces upward and from Kings downward until the two sequences meet. Players familiar with standard patience games can learn Bisley in one practice game.

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💡 Variant Strategy Note (2026)

Each solitaire variation demands unique table space management. In column-heavy formats like Spider or Yukon, prioritize unlocking hidden columns early to act as temporary staging areas.