Elevens is a single-deck pairing patience played on a three-by-three square of nine piles, each showing one card, with a talon of forty-three cards beside it. Two exposed cards leave together whenever their values add up to eleven — ace with ten, two with nine, and so on down to five with six. The jack, queen and king can never reach eleven, so they go instead to three slots at the foot of the board, one of each rank; the moment all three are filled the set leaves the game. Every pile a move empties refills itself from the talon at once. Clear all fifty-two cards to win. Also known as Eleven Away. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.
Goal: remove all 52 cards, in pairs that total eleven and in sets of jack, queen and king.
Elevens belongs to the family of pairing patiences that grew out of Pyramid, where the whole game is choosing which cards to take away. What sets this branch apart is the reserve: rather than declaring the court cards dead weight, it gives them a job. The jack, queen and king are collected as a set of three and discarded together, which turns twelve otherwise useless cards into a second thread of play running alongside the arithmetic. The idea proved durable enough that a whole line of games was built on it — Elevens Too changes only when the talon refills, Suit Elevens demands that a set share a suit, and Tens and Nines move the target sum and reshape the reserve around it. The open-source PySolFC collection, whose rules this version follows, records Elevens under the alternative name Eleven Away and rates it a game of luck. That is fair for a careless player; the choice of which pair to break up, and when to park a court card, still decides many games.
This Elevens 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.
Five pairs do: ace with ten, two with nine, three with eight, four with seven, and five with six. The jack, queen and king cannot make eleven with anything and go to the reserve slots instead.
They hold the jack, the queen and the king — one of each rank. When all three are filled the set leaves the game together and the slots are free again for the next set.
No. Each slot must hold a different rank, so a second jack is refused while one is already parked. You need a queen and a king to complete that set.
No. Any four pairs with any seven, and any jack joins any queen. Suit Elevens is the variant that adds the suit to both halves of the game.
No. The order of the talon can leave you with a board that cannot pair and a court rank that never appears. Careful play, and undo, give you the best chance.
One rule. In Elevens an emptied pile refills at once. In Elevens Too the talon waits while any slot is occupied, so the board shrinks until you complete the set.