Portuguese Solitaire is a single-deck, fully open patience on the Baker's Dozen board: thirteen piles of four cards, every one of them face up from the first move. It changes two things about Baker's Dozen, and both of them are about Kings. The Kings are not sunk to the bottom of their piles at the deal — a King dealt on top of a pile sits there, blocking everything under it — and an empty pile, which in Baker's Dozen is gone for good, here accepts a King and nothing else. No stock, no waste, no redeal. Free in your browser, no sign-up.
Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.
The whole game turns on the Kings, so plan around them before anything else.
Portuguese Solitaire belongs to the small family of open games built on the Baker's Dozen deal, and the family is best understood by what each member does with spaces. In Baker's Dozen the Kings are buried at the deal and an empty pile can never be refilled. In Castles in Spain the build is by alternating colour and a space takes any card. Portuguese Solitaire sits between them: the Kings are left loose, so they can block, but a space will take one, so the block can be broken. It is listed in the PySol Fan Club collection, in Thomas Warfield's Pretty Good Solitaire lineage, and in Wikipedia's account of the Baker's Dozen variants, which describes it as "halfway between Baker's Dozen and Spanish Patience".
Played well it is one of the friendlier open games, and because everything is visible from the deal, a lost game is almost always a planning mistake rather than bad luck. The single-card rule is what keeps it honest: a long packed run is only as movable as its top card, so the order in which you dig matters far more than in games that carry sequences.
If you enjoy this shape, try Streets and Alleys for the same suit-blind build on eight piles, or Citadel, where cards that fit a foundation are banked during the deal itself.
Two rules, both about Kings. Baker's Dozen moves every King to the bottom of its pile at the deal and never lets an empty pile be refilled. Portuguese Solitaire leaves the Kings exactly where the shuffle put them, so a King on top of a pile is a real obstacle, and it lets an empty pile be filled by a King and only a King. The build rule (down by rank, any suit, one card at a time) and the foundations are the same.
Only a King. No other card may move into a space, and packed sequences cannot move as a group, so a King always arrives alone. That makes each space a one-shot resource: clearing a pile is worth doing only when a specific King needs a home.
No. Only the top card of a pile may move, one card per move, even when several cards below it are already in perfect descending order. This is the Baker's Dozen family rule and it is what makes an open, fully visible deal genuinely hard.
No. Any card one rank lower may be placed on a pile's top card regardless of suit or colour: a 7 of hearts, spades, clubs or diamonds all go on any 8. Suit only matters on the foundations, which build up from Ace to King in a single suit.
Not every deal, but because nothing is hidden, a loss is nearly always the result of clearing a pile too early or digging out the wrong King. The game tells you when no legal move remains.
No. All 52 cards are dealt face up into the thirteen piles at the start, there is no stock to turn and no redeal. Every decision is made with complete information.