Eighteens is the hardest game in this family, and the most unusual. It uses two decks, and nothing is ever paired on the board at all. Twelve cards are dealt face-up as twelve piles of one, with a talon of ninety-two behind them. There are only two moves. An ace is removed on its own with one click. Every other card goes onto a single pile that holds at most four cards, and that pile leaves the game when it holds three cards adding up to eighteen plus exactly one jack, queen or king. While the pile holds anything the talon waits, so choosing what to start a set with is the whole game. Also known as Steel Wheels. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.
Goal: Play Eighteens Solitaire free online. Two decks, twelve piles, no pairing: build sets of three cards totalling eighteen plus one court card, and drop the aces.
Eighteens, also catalogued as Steel Wheels, is the most demanding member of the pairing family and the only two-deck one. Its arithmetic is remarkably tidy: the 104 cards divide into eight aces, seventy-two cards of value two to ten, and twenty-four court cards — and twenty-four sets of three low cards plus one court card consume the seventy-two and the twenty-four exactly. Nothing in the deck is surplus, which is a strong sign the rules are as intended. What makes it hard is the frozen talon. New cards reach the board only through a pile that a move has emptied, so if the twelve cards showing hold no three low cards totalling eighteen with distinct ranks, the deal is over where it stands. Testing this version over four hundred deals, an automatic player following the game's own hints cleared as many as ninety-nine of the hundred and four cards but never quite won — which is a fair measure of how tight it is, and why unlimited undo turns it from a coin toss into a genuine puzzle. The open-source PySolFC collection, whose rules this version follows, rates it mostly luck and declines to offer a hint for it at all.
This Eighteens runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer; once installed it works offline. Unlimited undo, statistics, and a daily challenge that gives every player the same deal that day.
The pile must hold four cards: three whose values total eighteen, and exactly one jack, queen or king. Three cards totalling eighteen with no court card will not clear.
From two to ten with no rank repeated there are eight triples: 2-7-9, 2-6-10, 3-5-10, 3-6-9, 3-7-8, 4-5-9, 4-6-8 and 5-6-7.
One of four reasons: the pile already holds that rank, it already holds a court card, the card would push the total past eighteen, or two low cards are down and yours does not land on eighteen exactly.
No. Eighteens has no board removals at all. Every card leaves either as a lone ace or as part of a set on the pile.
The pile is holding something. The talon waits until the set of four completes, so plan the whole set before you place the first card.
Yes, but rarely without care. Taking whatever set the hints show is not enough; plan each set before you place its first card. With unlimited undo it becomes a solvable puzzle rather than a gamble.