Lanes hands you two gifts and takes one thing away. The gifts: the four Aces are already on the foundations before the deal, and an empty column accepts any card at all rather than only a King. What it takes away is the run move. However neatly a sequence lines up in a column, you can only ever lift its top card — so every relocation has to be taken apart and rebuilt a card at a time, and the six shallow columns make that a genuine puzzle. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.
Losing the run move sounds like a small tax. On a board this shallow it is the whole game: every plan has to be built one card at a time, in an order that works.
Lanes is registered in the PySol Fan Club collection as a Klondike variant, and its class states four departures from the parent game in four lines: six columns instead of seven, the Aces dealt to the foundations before the tableau, an empty column open to any rank rather than to Kings, and — the one that matters most — a move allowance of exactly one card.
That last line is what separates it from its twin. Blind Alleys is dealt on the same six columns of three, with the same pre-founded Aces, the same open spaces and the same single redeal — but Blind Alleys hides the lower two cards of every column where Lanes deals all eighteen face up, and runs travel in Blind Alleys and do not here. PySolFC rates them differently as a result — Lanes balanced, Blind Alleys mostly luck — which is a fair summary of what a free run move does to a board this small.
This catalogue already carries such a pair in another family: Emperor and Rank and File differ by the same single flag, and they play as differently as these two do. A rule that changes how every plan is executed is not a setting, even when it is one line of code.
For the same short-column shape with Kings-only spaces and no pre-founded Aces, play Westcliff. For the family's full staircase, play Klondike.
One honest note on difficulty. PySolFC rates Lanes balanced, but no published win rate for it that we can find comes with a method or a sample size, so this page quotes none. Structurally it is a game where the Aces are free and the manoeuvring is not — the opposite balance from most of this family.
Because Lanes allows exactly one card per move. Even when the cards below the top one already run down in alternating colours, only the top card lifts, so every relocation has to be dismantled and rebuilt a card at a time.
Two ways. Lanes deals its six columns of three entirely face up and moves one card at a time; Blind Alleys hides the lower two cards of each column and lets a packed run travel. Both start with the four Aces on the foundations, both open their spaces to any card and both give one redeal.
Yes, all four are lifted before the tableau is dealt. That is why the stock holds 30 cards rather than 34, and why every 2 you uncover can be banked straight away.
Any card at all. There is no King rule in Lanes, which makes a space a genuine staging area rather than somewhere only a King can sit — and with single-card moves, that space is what makes plans possible.
Twice. The stock turns one card at a time to the waste, and after it empties you may recycle the waste exactly once. Plan the second pass with what you learned on the first.
Twos yes, higher cards more carefully. Nothing in the tableau builds on an Ace, so a 2 is never useful in play. A 4 left on the board can host either black or red 3 depending on its colour, and foundations are one-way.