La Belle Lucie Solitaire
La Belle Lucie solitaire is sometimes called Alexander the Great, Clover Leaf, Fair Lucy, Midnight Oil, The Fan.
Layout:
Deal out the whole deck in seventeen fans, three cards in each, leave one left over. The card left over froms a seperate pile.
How to Play:
Move one card at a time. The goal is to move the four aces, when they become available to a row near you. Build these foundations up in suit to kings. Uncovered cards are available for building on suites or for packing on one another in suit and descending sequence.
Build on the tableau (fans), build down in suit. One card at a time may be lifted from a fan to be put on a foundation or another fan. Spaces made by playing off a whole fan are not filled. There may never be more than eighteen fans.
Redeals:
Two redeals are allowed. After play comes to a standstill, gather all the cards not on the foundations, shuffle them, and deal again in fans of three. If one or two cards are left over, they make a seperate fan.
Draw:
After the last redeal, any one buried card may be drawn out of any one fan.
La Belle Lucie Tips:
Once a build is made, it cannot be undone except by play on a foundation; or bury the cards beyond recovery, to release others.
One way to begin
La Belle Lucie solitaire is to take note of all cards buried by kings. Since the cards next-lower in sequence to these buried card cannot be moved, they can be built upon. Lets say a ten of spades is below a king, build on the nine of spades. Similarly, having immolated some cards by a build, build freely on the cards next-lower in suit.
The layout usually offers many choices of play. Canvass all possibilities before making a move. For example, suppose that the four, five and six of clubs are available. If the five and four are built on the six, that fan is killed. If the five and four, are built on the six, that fan killed, while the six can perhaps be moved later through clearing the seven. The choice of play will of course depend on whether the cards below the club five below the club six are wanted urgently.
Play on foundations, if a card is playable on a foundation it is of no use in the tableau.
Napoleon
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