Ali Baba is the friendly one-deck Forty Thieves: forty cards face up, the four Aces already on the foundations, runs that move. Big Forty is the same ten-by-four board played harder. The Aces are still in the pack, and the stock — only twelve cards — is turned as often as you like. It is PySolFC's Big Forty, the game Ali Baba is derived from. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.
Every card is in view and the stock is tiny, so the game is almost entirely about which column to take apart, and in what order.
PySolFC registers Big Forty as a one-deck Klondike-type game with ten columns and a suit build, and derives Ali Baba from it by founding the four Aces before the deal. This catalogue built Ali Baba on the Forty Thieves engine because its board — an open tableau over a stock turned to a waste — is that family's, and Big Forty sits beside it for the same reason. The two differ by a real rule: Ali Baba's Aces are up before the deal, Big Forty's are in the pack; and Big Forty's stock recycles where this catalogue's Ali Baba allows one pass. Both deal every card face up.
The name has also been used for Forty Thieves itself; the research sheet behind this catalogue adjudicated that conflict, and this page is PySolFC's Big Forty.
Like every game in this family here, the first stock card is left for you to turn rather than dealt to the waste at the start.
Two ways. The four Aces are not founded before play, and the stock may be recycled without limit. Ali Baba founds its Aces and, in this catalogue, allows one pass. Same ten columns of four dealt face up, same suit build, same run move.
Because forty of the fifty-two are dealt to the tableau, all face up. The stock is a small loop you will see again and again; the real game is the forty cards in the columns.
Yes, by the source's rule. The game still ends honestly: once a full pass of the stock offers no play and the board cannot change, no further pass will differ, and the game reports the dead end.
Any card or suit run. There is no king rule.
Some sources use Big Forty as a name for Forty Thieves itself. This page follows PySolFC's registration, a one-deck game derived from Klondike with ten columns, and the research behind it records the conflict.