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Pigtail solitaire rules (2 decks of cards)<< Perseverance | Plait >>

Goal: One card is dealt to determine the starting rank for the 'foundation' piles. Move out the other 7 when you can, and build them up to piles of 13 cards each in the same suit. Aces play onto kings.

A 'pigtail' of 20 cards is dealt down the center. The top card is available for play.

A layout of 12 cards is dealt around the middle. The left and right sides are 4 cards each, and 2 cards at the top and bottom are the corners. Each card is available to play to the foundations. There is no building on these piles.

Empty spaces in the sides are filled from the waste pile or deck. Empty spaces in the corners are filled from the pigtail.

Turn over 1 card at a time from the deck, playing the top card if you can.

3 redeals are allowed, returning the waste pile back to the deck.



Also known as: Cadenette, Flapper, Plait

Variation of: Fort

Difference: Rather than 4 dealt aces and kings that build up and down, 1 dealt card determines the base rank. The other 7 move out as they become available, all building up. The pigtail is 20 cards rather than 21. A 3rd redeal is added.

Two games were named Plait, so David Parlett renamed this one to another term for braided hair. It's also the word Tom King uses to describe the 20 plaited cards.

It's unclear if the original rules allow 3 redeals, or 3 times through the deck (2 redeals). Comtesse de Blanccoeur states "On peut jusqu'a trois fois relever le talon." (One can up to three times raise the talon.) Professor Hoffman states "You are entitled to deal three times through the waste-heap." David Parlett allows 3 redeals. D. B. Pritchard allows 2. Tom King and George F. Hervey allow unlimited redeals. Tom King skips the waste pile, and simply shifts unplayed cards to the bottom of the deck.

George F. Hervey and D. B. Pritchard allow corners to be filled from the pigtail or the deck.

Dick and Fitzgerald, George A. Bonaventure, and Helen L. Coops describe this same game as "The Gathering of the Clans", but with 22 cards in the center (7 overlapping fans of 3, topped by a horizontal card).

Rules source: Le Livre Illustre des Patiences, Comtesse de Blanccoeur (La Cadenette) ~ The Illustrated Book of Patience Games, Professor Hoffman (The Plait) ~ Thirty-One Patience Games, Tom King (Flapper) ~ Enjoying Card Games for One, George F. Hervey (Plait) ~ The Penguin Book of Patience, David Parlett ~ Patience Games, D. B. Pritchard (Plait)

Pigtail solitaire
This is one of 6 layouts for Pigtail in Solitaire Forever II.


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