Canfield

Demon, Fascination, Thirteen

For 1 Player - Level: Difficult

Canfield is one of the most popular solitaire games in the world. A shorter, faster game than Klondike, Canfield is played much the same way, but it starts from a different basic layout.

Canfield came by its name in an interesting way. Mr Canfield owned a gambling house in Saratoga Springs in the 1890s. He used to sell his customers packs of cards at $50 each, and then pay them back $5 for every card they were able to score. Estimates are that the average number of cards you could expect to score in a game was five or six; so, Mr. Canfleld did pretty well.

Layout: Count out 13 cards into one pile, and put it in front of you face up, and a little to your left. Then put a 14th card to the right of the pile, and slightly above it; whatever that card is, it becomes the foundation card of this particular deal. As the other cards of the same rank appear, you'll be placing them too in the foundation row.

To win the game: Build the foundation cards into four complete suits of 13 cards each.

Next, you lay out a row of four cards below the foundation card, face up:

No cards are ever built on the 13-pile. The object is to unload it. For example, in the illustration above, you couldn't put a 5 - or any other card - on the 6. Cards from the 13-pile can be played only onto the foundations, or into the four-card row when a space opens up.

Play: First check the four-card spread carefully, to see whether you can make any moves. Besides playing cards to the foundations, you can build cards onto the four-card spread downwards in alternating colours.

For instance, in the illustration above, the 3 of Hearts can go onto the 4 of Spades; the 7 of Diamonds can go up into the foundation row; and the 6 of Spades can come down into the row of four. Once it does, the 5 of Hearts can be played onto it.

You are permitted to move sequences of cards as one unit. For example, the 3 and 4 may be moved together onto the 5 and 6; so, your layout would look like this:

Then you can proceed to fill the other open spaces in the four-card row with cards from the 13-pile.

Now start turning up cards from the pack, in batches of three, playing them either to the foundations, to the four-card row, or to the waste pile. The top card of the waste pile is always available for play.

As spaces open up in the four-card row, continue to fill them with cards from the 13-card pile. When these are exhausted, you can fill them with cards from your hand, or from the waste pile.

Redeal: As many times as you want, or until the game is blocked.

Chameleon

Play exactly the same way as Canfield, except:
1. Count out only 12 cards, instead of 13, for the 13-card pile.
2. Deal only three cards to the four-card row.
3. The layout looks slightly different, thus:

Rainbow

Play exactly the same way as Canfield, except go through the pack one card at a time. You are allowed two redeals in some versions of the game - none in others!

Selective Canfield

Play exactly the same way as Canfield, except deal a five-card row instead of four. Choose your foundation yourself from one of these cards.

Storehouse

Provisions, Reserve, Thirteen Up

Play exactly the same way as Canfield, except:
1. Remove the four deuces from the pack, and set them up as the foundations.
2. Build them up in suit to Aces.

Superior Demon

Play exactly the same way as Canfield, except:
1. Spread the 13-card pile, so that you can see it, and take it into account as you play.
2. You don't have to fill a space in the layout until you want.
3. You can shift any part of a sequence to another position - you don't have to move the entire sequence.

From '101 Favourite Card Games for One'.
© 1992 Sheila Anne Barry.