Lucas is the friendly door into the Forty Thieves family. Before a single card is dealt to the table, all eight aces are lifted out and placed on their foundations. The remaining ninety-six cards deal into thirteen face-up columns of three, over a stock of fifty-seven. Nothing about the building rules is relaxed — it still builds down by suit, still one card at a time — but a board only three cards deep with every ace already up is a different proposition from ten columns of four and nothing started.
Do not bank a two just because you can. With the aces already up, the twos and threes are playable almost immediately, and that is the trap. Sending a two to the foundation when its three sits under an unmovable king strands the whole suit. Check what is above the next card before you play the current one.
Empty a column early — you have thirteen. Spaces are cheaper here than anywhere else in the family, and a space is the only way to re-home a blocker in a suit-only game. Clearing one three-card column costs little and pays for the rest of the deal.
Work the board fully before each stock click. There is no redeal, so the stock is a one-way street. Every card you pass is a card you will not see again.
Watch both copies of a rank. Two decks mean two of every card. If one nine of clubs is buried six deep and the other is on top of a column, the second one is your card — do not spend moves excavating the first.
The Forty Thieves group is one of the largest variant families in patience, and its members differ along a small set of dials: the deal shape, whether the tableau builds by suit or by colour, whether runs may travel, and whether the stock comes round again. Lucas turns a dial none of the others touch — it starts the foundations for you. Every other member makes you dig eight aces out of the pack before a foundation can begin, which is where most deals are lost. Removing that hurdle, and dealing only three cards deep, makes Lucas the family's gentlest introduction while leaving its strict suit-only building completely intact. Play it first, then Limited, then the parent, and you can feel each concession being taken away.
Lucas runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer and it works offline. You get unlimited undo, a hint button that names a legal move, statistics that track your wins and times, and seeded deals: every game has a seed you can replay, so a board you enjoyed (or lost) can be played again exactly.
That is Lucas's defining rule. All eight aces are removed before the deal and placed on their foundations, so foundation building can begin with the first two you uncover.
No. The stock is dealt one card at a time to the waste, and once it is exhausted only the board and the waste top remain. The shallow three-card columns are the concession instead.
Considerably. The pre-founded aces and the three-deep columns give a careful player far more room than the parent game.
No — one card per move, as in the rest of the classic Forty Thieves line.
Yes. The board sizes itself to your screen, and on a narrow display the cards shrink and the columns tighten so all thirteen stay visible and tappable.
Lucas first — the aces are given and the columns are shallow. Then Limited, then Forty and Eight for its redeal, and finally Forty Thieves itself once suit-only building feels natural.