Play Alexander the Great Solitaire Online — Clover Leaf in Fans of Four

Alexander the Great is Clover Leaf dealt deeper. The two black aces and the two red kings start on the foundations, and the other forty-eight cards are dealt face up into twelve fans of four instead of sixteen fans of three. Everything else is Clover Leaf: fans build up or down in suit one card at a time, clubs and spades are banked up from the ace, hearts and diamonds down from the king, and an empty fan takes an ace or a king. No stock, no redeal. Bank all 52 to win.

Setup

Remove the ace of clubs, the ace of spades, the king of hearts and the king of diamonds and place them on the foundations. Shuffle the remaining forty-eight cards and deal four face up to each of twelve fans, spread so every card shows.

Rules

• Black foundations (clubs, spades) build up in suit from the ace to the king.
• Red foundations (hearts, diamonds) build down in suit from the king to the ace. Neither turns the corner.
• Fans build up or down in suit, one rank at a time, no wrapping.
• 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.
• An empty fan takes an ace or a king and nothing else.
• No redeal. The game ends when no move remains.
• Win when all four foundations are complete.

Strategy

Four cards to a fan means three buried cards under every exposed one, and only twelve exposed cards to work with. The game is tighter than Clover Leaf: fewer hosts, deeper digging, and a bigger reward for every fan you clear.

• Look three deep. Before building onto a fan, read what lies under its top card. A fan with a black two or a red queen at the bottom is worth three moves of digging; a fan with nothing useful below is a host, not a target.
• Hosts are scarce. Twelve exposed cards give few places to put anything. A build that uses a host for a card that could have been banked directly is a host wasted.
• Reversible builds are your working room. Up-or-down building lets a card step onto a neighbour and back. Use that to lift the top card off a fan, take the card beneath, and return the first.
• Spaces for the extremes. A black king or a red ace parked in an empty fan is out of the way for good, since it is the last card its foundation needs.
• Bank the second cards first. The black twos and red queens each start a run; once a suit is moving from its end, the deep fans of that suit open faster.
• Count before you clear. Emptying a fan is only useful if you have an ace or a king to put there or the last card was bankable. Otherwise you have traded a host for nothing.

Where It Sits in the Fan Family

Alexander the Great is the deeper deal of Clover Leaf: the same lift, the same split foundations and the same ace-or-king space, with twelve fans of four in place of sixteen of three. House on the Hill takes the same split foundations to two decks.

Other Games to Try

• Clover Leaf — the same rules in sixteen fans of three
• House on the Hill — split foundations over two decks
• Quads — fans of four built by equal rank
• La Belle Lucie — the classic Fan with reshuffles

About This Online Version

Alexander the Great 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.