Play Canfield — Free

What is Canfield?

Canfield is a single-deck patience with a genuine gambling pedigree — invented as a house game, not a parlour amusement, and still remembered as one of the hardest solitaires ever devised. It takes its name from Richard A. Canfield, who ran a fashionable casino in Saratoga Springs, New York, in the 1890s. The legend goes that a customer bought a shuffled deck from the house for fifty-two dollars and was paid five dollars back for every card that reached the foundations, with a fat bonus for a full clear. Because the game almost never comes out, the house kept the difference — a tidy edge dressed up as a quiet game of cards. In Britain the same layout is known by the wonderfully ominous name Demon Patience, a nod to the brooding thirteen-card "demon" reserve that sits waiting to be cleared.

The setup is what gives Canfield its bite. Thirteen cards are stacked into a reserve with only the top one face up; a single card is turned to the foundations and its rank becomes the base rank that all four foundations must start from; one card is dealt to each of four tableau columns; and everything left over forms the stock. From there you build the foundations up by suit — wrapping past the King back to the Ace if the base rank is high — while the tableau builds down in alternating colours, also wrapping so a King can land on an Ace. This vygam version deals instantly in your browser with tap-to-move controls, whole-sequence moves, double-tap-to-foundation, deal-three from the stock with unlimited redeals, unlimited undo, and a saved win count. A low win rate is completely normal, so a fresh, honest deal is always one tap away.

How to Play Canfield

Canfield rewards planning, but it is strict about what counts as a legal move. A move simply won't happen when:

• you send a card to a foundation that is a different suit, or not the next rank up in the wrap-around sequence — foundations climb by suit from the base rank only;
• you drop a tableau card of the same colour, or one that is not exactly one rank lower (with the King wrapping onto the Ace) — the tableau builds down in alternating colours;
• you try to hold an empty column while the reserve still has cards — it is refilled from the reserve automatically the moment it clears;
• you break up a sequence out of order — only a properly ordered, alternating-colour run may travel together as one move.

Canfield Tips & Strategy

Canfield was built to beat you, so no amount of skill turns it into an easy win — but sharp play lifts a dismal win rate into a respectable one. The whole game revolves around one stubborn pile of thirteen cards, and the players who win are the ones who never lose sight of it. These four habits will make your deals go home far more often.

1. Attack the reserve above all else

   The thirteen-card reserve is the demon at the heart of Canfield, and you cannot win until it is gone. Because empty tableau columns are refilled from the reserve automatically, every column you clear quietly peels one more card off the top of that pile. Make emptying columns and playing the exposed reserve card your first priority on almost every turn — a foundation move or a tidy tableau build is nice, but a reserve card unlocked is real progress toward the only pile that can end the game.

2. Check colour before you build down

   The tableau builds down in alternating colours, not by suit, so glance at the colour of a card before you commit it. A red six only accepts a black five, and a black nine only accepts a red eight; getting this wrong wastes a move and can strand the very card you were trying to free. Because the sequence wraps, keep an eye out for the sneaky King-on-Ace play, which opens up long runs that would otherwise look like dead ends. Reading colours cleanly is what keeps your columns fluid instead of jammed.

3. Deal with a plan, not on a whim

   The stock hands you three cards at a time and only the top of the waste is playable, so a careless deal can bury a card you needed underneath two others. Before you turn the stock, exhaust the safe moves already on the board — clear reserve cards, empty a column, advance a foundation. When you do deal, watch the whole three-card packet, not just the top: knowing that a needed card is one below tells you to spend the top card quickly. Redeals are unlimited here, so a fresh pass can rescue a buried card, but only if you leave yourself somewhere to put it.

4. Feed the foundations evenly and mind the wrap

   All four foundations start on the base rank and climb together, so advancing them at a similar pace keeps the widest range of cards playable and gives your tableau builds somewhere to unload. Resist racing one suit far ahead unless it directly frees a reserve or column card. Keep the wrap-around firmly in mind: once a foundation passes the King it wants the Ace next, then the two, so cards that looked useless early — the low ranks below your base — become the finishing pieces late in the game. Planning for that turn is often the difference between a stall and a clean sweep.

Canfield vs Klondike and Other Solitaires

If you have played Klondike Solitaire, FreeCell or Pyramid Solitaire, Canfield will feel familiar in its parts but distinctly meaner in the hand. Klondike lays out seven tableau columns, starts every foundation on the Ace, and lets you draw through the stock repeatedly, which makes a comfortable share of deals winnable. Canfield trims the tableau to just four columns, hands you a brooding thirteen-card reserve that must be cleared to win, and starts each foundation on a shuffled base rank with wrap-around building rather than the tidy Ace-to-King climb. Both games build the tableau down in alternating colours and let you shift ordered runs, but Canfield's reserve and awkward base rank tighten the screws at every turn. FreeCell, by contrast, deals every card face up with free cells to help and is almost always solvable, while Pyramid is a pure matching game with a very different shape. Canfield sits at the demanding end of the family — closer in spirit to the classic casino patiences than to the friendly Klondike most people learn first.

Winning Canfield

A game of Canfield is won the instant all 52 cards reach the four foundations, each suit built up and around from the base rank. Be warned that this is a low-win-rate game by design — its casino origins mean most deals simply cannot be brought home, and even strong players clear only a modest fraction, with figures around one deal in twenty commonly quoted. That is not a flaw; it is the whole character of the game, and it makes each genuine win feel earned. On vygam the header shows a live "Home" counter and the current base rank so you always know where you stand, and every full clear is quietly saved as a win in your browser to build a running record. There is no clock and no penalty for thinking, so use the unlimited Undo button freely to test a risky line, rewind a deal that buried the wrong card, and hunt patiently for the rare, richly satisfying full board.

FAQ

Games like Canfield