Play Monte Carlo Solitaire — Adjacent-Pair Matching on a 5×5 Grid
Monte Carlo Solitaire is a single-deck pair-matching puzzle. Twenty-five cards are dealt face-up into a 5×5 grid. You remove pairs of cards of the same rank — but only when the two cards are touching (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). After every removal, the remaining cards compact upward and leftward, and new cards from the deck fill the empty bottom-right slots. Clear the entire deck to win. Also known as Weddings. Free in your browser, no sign-up. Works offline once the page has loaded.
How Do You Play Monte Carlo?
Goal: remove all 52 cards by matching adjacent same-rank pairs.
Setup
- Grid: 25 cards face-up in a 5×5 arrangement.
- Stock: the remaining 27 cards face-down beside the grid.
- No foundations. Removed pairs leave play directly.
Rules
- Click two cards of the same rank to remove them, but only if they are adjacent — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- After a removal, the remaining cards compact: cards shift toward the top-left to fill the empty positions, in row-major order.
- When the grid is no longer full (after compaction), new cards from the stock fill the empty slots in the bottom-right.
- Suits don't matter — only rank.
- You win when the stock is empty and no cards remain in the grid. You lose if no adjacent pair exists and no stock cards are left to refill.
What's the Best Monte Carlo Strategy?
- Plan around compaction. When you remove a pair, every card after the empty slots shifts up-left. A pair that's currently adjacent may not be adjacent after the next removal. Trace the shift before clicking.
- Watch for triples and quads. Each rank has four copies. If three are visible and one is buried in the stock, removing the wrong pair can strand the third. Pair the two that are easiest to reach in their current adjacency.
- Don't let one rank stack up. Two unmatched copies of a rank that aren't touching is fine. Three unmatched copies that aren't touching is dangerous — the next two stock cards may not free a match.
- Use diagonal adjacency. Diagonals count, which is easy to forget. A diagonal pair is sometimes the only way to clear a stuck rank.
- Save predictable pairs for the end. A pair that's adjacent now will likely still be adjacent after a few moves if it's in the same row/column. Save those as flexibility cushions and tackle the ones that compaction will separate first.
A Short History
Monte Carlo Solitaire is a 19th-century pair-matching patience that appears in many anthologies. It is also called Weddings, a name that predates Monte Carlo in some published collections — the wedding metaphor refers to the pair-matching mechanic, not to the city. The variant has remained in print continuously since the late 19th century and is included in many modern multi-game digital collections, often alongside other compact pair-matching games like Pyramid.
About This Version
This Monte Carlo runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install 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.
Other Solitaire Games to Try
- Pyramid — pair-to-13 puzzle on a 28-card pyramid
- TriPeaks — three-pyramid ±1 rank matching with high win rate
- Golf — ±1 rank matching on a single waste pile
- Mahjong Solitaire — match free tile pairs to clear the layout