Play House in the Wood Solitaire Online — Fan With Two Decks
House in the Wood, also called Double Fan, is the Fan family at twice the size. Two decks are dealt face up into thirty-four fans of three and a thirty-fifth of two. Only the exposed card of each fan is in play. Fans build up or down in suit, one card at a time, and an empty fan is never refilled. Eight foundations, two per suit, build up from the ace. There is no stock and no redeal: everything you need is on the table from the first move. Bank all 104 cards to win.
Setup
Shuffle two standard decks together. Deal three cards face up to each of thirty-four fans, spreading each fan so every card shows, and deal the last two cards to a thirty-fifth fan. Leave room for eight foundations above the fans. There is no stock, no waste and no reserve.
Rules
- Foundations build up in suit from the ace to the king. Each suit has two foundations, and a card may go to either of its suit's piles that will take it.
- Fans build up or down in suit: the seven of clubs may go on the six of clubs or the eight of clubs. Building does not turn the corner between king and ace.
- Only the exposed card of a fan is in play: the last card dealt to it, on top of the spread.
- One card at a time. A sequence never moves as a unit, however neatly it is packed.
- Spaces take nothing. A fan you empty is gone; the space is not a resource.
- No redeal. When no move remains, the game is over.
- Win when all eight foundations are complete.
Strategy
Two decks change the character of Fan. With twins of every card there are twice as many hosts for any card you need to park, and twice as many cards that can be banked on each foundation. The board is wide, so the discipline is to read it in suits rather than scanning left to right.
- Dig for the aces first. Eight aces are buried among thirty-five fans. Any fan whose bottom card is an ace is worth clearing early, because a foundation that has opened makes every low card of that suit bankable.
- Up-or-down building is reversible. A card you build onto a neighbour can usually come straight back. Use that freedom to shuffle a card out of the way for one move, then return it, rather than treating every build as permanent.
- Prefer the build that exposes a bankable card. Of two legal builds, take the one whose source fan then shows a card a foundation wants. The hint ranks moves this way.
- Keep the twins apart. Two sevens of hearts want two different eights or sixes. If both twins sit on the same host you have used one host for two cards and lost a move.
- Do not empty fans for the sake of it. A fan of one card is a free host; an empty fan is nothing. Empty a fan only when its last card has somewhere useful to go.
- Count the foundations you have opened. With two piles per suit, banking can stall on one pile while the other is still waiting for its ace. Bring both aces of a suit up before chasing high cards.
Where It Sits in the Fan Family
House in the Wood is the two-deck member of the Fan line: the same open fans and single-card moves as Fan and La Belle Lucie, with no reshuffle. House on the Hill is the same board with one foundation of each suit built down from the king instead of up from the ace.
Other Games to Try
About This Online Version
House in the Wood runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer and it works offline. You get unlimited undo, a hint button that names a legal move, statistics that track your wins and times, and seeded deals: every game has a seed you can replay, so a board you enjoyed (or lost) can be played again exactly.