Four Seasons (solitaire)

Four Seasons is a solitaire card game which is played with a deck of playing cards. It is given the more appropriate alternate names of Corner Card and Vanishing Cross because of where the foundations are placed and the arrangement of the tableau respectively.

First, five cards are dealt in form of a cross: three cards are placed in a row, then two cards are each placed above and below the middle of the three cards. A sixth card is dealt in the upper left corner of the cross. This card will be the base for the first of four foundations. The three cards of the same rank are placed in the other three corners of the cross to become the foundations themselves.

The foundations are built up in suit and building is round-the-corner, i.e. aces are placed above kings, except when aces are the foundation bases.

Cards in the cross are built down regardless of suit and any space in the cross is filled with any available card, whether it is the top card of a pile within the cross, the top card of the wastepile, or a card from the stock. Like the foundations, building in the cross is round-the-corner, i.e. kings are placed over aces, unless aces are the foundations. Only one card can be moved at a time.

Whenever the game goes on a standstill, the stock is dealt one card at a time into the wastepile, the top card of which is available for play on the cross or on the foundations. There is no redeal.

The game ends if a standstill occurs after the stock has run out. The game is won when all cards end up in the foundations.

Variations

Below are the variations of Four Seasons:

• In Czarina, any space in the cross is immediately filled only from the stock.
• In Corners, the cross is in fact a reserve, not a tableau, and each space is a cell, which should have room for only one card. Empty cells in this game are filled immediately from the stock.
• Simplicity is played like Four Seasons. The only exception is that the tableau (instead of a cross) contains twelve cards dealt into two rows of six. The thirteenth card deal becomes the base of the first formation. Also, building in the tableau is down by alternating colors.

See also: solitaire terminology