How to Play Windmill Solitaire

Windmill Solitaire Rules

| Players: 1 | Type: Solitaire | Supplies: 2 Decks |

Objective

The objective of Windmill is to build the ace foundation pile in ascending order to the king four times, and each of the four king foundation piles in descending order to the ace.

Setup

Remove an ace from the deck and place it in the center of the tableau to form the ace foundation pile. Deal two tableau cells above, below, to the left, and to the right of the ace to form eight tableau cells, in the shape of a cross. Place the remaining deck face down to form the stock.

Game Play

Suits do not matter in this game. The center ace foundation pile is built from the ace in ascending order to the king, four times. To add a card to the ace foundation pile, it must be one rank higher than the top card of this pile. When you reach a king in this foundation pile, you may play an ace onto this foundation pile to continue building up. This pile needs to reach a king four times to be completed.

When a king becomes available for play, you may move it to a corner of the cross to form a king foundation pile. For example, you could move the king of hearts to a corner (marked with a “K”) to start a king foundation pile. There will be four king foundation piles, one on each diagonal corner of the ace foundation pile, that are built from the king in descending order to the ace. To add a card to a king foundation pile, it must be one rank lower than the top card of the pile it is being moved onto. Following the previous example, you could move the queen of diamonds onto the king of hearts, since the queen of diamonds is one rank lower than the king of hearts.

The top card of each tableau cell and the top card of the waste pile is available for play onto a foundation pile. The top card of each of the four king foundation piles may be moved to the ace foundation pile if the card being moved is one rank higher than the top card of the ace foundation pile. The top card of the ace foundation pile may be moved to a king foundation pile if the card being moved is one rank lower than the top card of the pile it is being moved onto. Each tableau cell may only hold one card. When a tableau cell becomes empty, it is immediately filled by the top card of the waste pile, or the top card of the stock if the waste pile is empty. Following the previous two examples, since two cards were removed from the tableau, and the waste pile hasn't been started yet, use the top two cards of the stock to fill these two empty cells. When there are no more available moves, flip the top card of the stock over to form or add to the waste pile. When the stock is depleted and there are no more moves, the game is over.

To Win

Windmill is won if the four king foundation piles are built in descending order to the ace, and the ace foundation pile is built in ascending order to the king four times. If there are no more moves after the stock is depleted, and there are still cards in the tableau or waste pile, the game is lost.