Aces Up Solitaire Rules: How to Play and Win

The layout

Four cards are dealt face up, one to each pile. The remaining 48 cards become the stock, and only the top card of each pile is ever in play.

The rules

• If two exposed top cards share a suit, discard the lower one. The higher card stays where it is.
• Aces are the highest cards in the game, so an exposed Ace can never be discarded — and it clears out every lower card of its suit that appears against it.
• When a pile empties, you may move any top card into the empty pile. This is your only way to rearrange the table.
• When nothing can be discarded, deal one new card from the stock onto each of the four piles.
• Win by discarding all 48 non-ace cards. Lose when the stock is gone, nothing can be discarded, and no empty pile remains.

The classic mistake is thinking of Aces Up as a reaction game. It is not: the order you discard in decides which cards get exposed, and that decides the rest of the round.

The decisions behind a good round

Every discard uncovers the card beneath it, so the real question is never “can I remove this card?” but “what do I see once I do?” Two low cards of the same suit are both removable, and the correct one is whichever uncovers the more useful card underneath.

• Protect an exposed Ace. It can never be removed, and it turns every lower card of its suit into a free discard for the whole round.
• Use the empty pile deliberately — move the card that is blocking a better one, not just the highest card you own.
• Treat Kings and Queens as safe residents. The only card that can remove a King is its own Ace, so a King on top of a pile will usually survive.
• Discard before you deal. A new card buries whatever sits on top, and a discard you skipped is often a chance you will not see again.
• Keep a rough count of the aces. How many have appeared decides how much of the board is still worth protecting.

Where Aces Up sits in the family

If you like the quick comparison rhythm, Aces Up is the shortest round on the site. For another arithmetic-flavoured game of similar length, Pyramid Solitaire rules is the natural companion, and the full family is laid out in How to play solitaire.