La Belle Lucie means "the beautiful Lucy" in French, and the whole deck is spread across the table in small fans of three cards. Only the end card of each fan is available to play, so working space is extremely tight from the very first move. Two redeals give you a second and a third attempt at the same deck.
Goal: Build four foundation piles. Each runs up in one suit, from the Ace to the King.
The Redeal button unlocks when no move is left. Here is what happens:
After the second redeal no further reshuffles are available, so you must finish the game with whatever layout you have been given.
Some rule books add an option called the merci, which lets you pull a single buried card free after the last redeal. This version deliberately leaves it out, which keeps the ending unambiguous and allows the game to tell you with certainty when a board has died.
In many patience games you deliberately hold cards back from the foundations, but here that instinct works against you:
Cards trapped in the middle of a fan are the real obstacle in this game:
The same-suit building requirement makes this game unusually strict:
You are given only two redeals, so the timing of each one matters enormously:
An empty fan can never be refilled once it has gone:
La Belle Lucie is one of the older recorded patience games and has appeared in print since at least the 1870s. You may also encounter it under the names The Fan, Clover Leaf, Midnight Oil or Alexander the Great.
The four Aces begin already placed on the foundations, so only 48 cards are dealt into the fans, which makes the game noticeably easier.
The same layout but with no redeals whatsoever, which makes it considerably harder and demands very careful planning.
A fan can never grow beyond three cards, and that additional restriction changes the character of the whole game.
La Belle Lucie is a demanding game, and even strong players win only about 15% to 25% of the deals they attempt. The two redeals certainly help, but the cramped fans and strict same-suit building keep the difficulty high.
That single rule is what gives the game its distinctive shape. Without it the fans would behave like ordinary empty columns and the puzzle would become far easier.
The button only becomes active when no legal move remains, so you cannot redeal too early by accident. It is still worth scanning the board once more before you press it.
No, only single cards may be moved, and only from the exposed end of a fan. This restriction is precisely what makes a buried card so expensive to reach.
No further redeals remain at that point. If the fans subsequently run out of legal moves, the game is over and you can begin a new deal.
Yes, the spread shows at a glance exactly which card in each fan is free and which cards sit blocked behind it. That makes the entire board readable without any counting.
Fancy the challenge? Play La Belle Lucie now.