How is Little Forty different from Forty Thieves?

Four ways, all of them mercies. Columns build down by rank regardless of suit instead of by suit; packed runs move as a unit instead of one card at a time; the stock deals three cards a turn instead of one; and there are three redeals where Forty Thieves has none. The deal, the two decks and the eight foundations are the same.

Can I move a run of cards together?

Yes. Any sequence in descending order moves as a unit, regardless of suit or colour, because the build rule itself ignores suit. This is the Pretty Good Solitaire rule; PySol's port only lets same-suit runs move.

How does the three-card deal work?

Each click on the stock turns three cards onto the waste, and only the top one can be played. Playing it exposes the one beneath. When the stock is empty the waste is turned over, in order, to form a new stock, so the groups of three repeat unless you have played cards out of them.

How many redeals are there?

Three, giving four passes through the stock in all. After the fourth pass the stock is done.

What can go on an empty column?

Any single card or any packed run. Empty columns are free working space here; there is no rule forcing you to fill them from the waste.

Is Little Forty winnable?

Nearly always. Play sites report win rates around ninety-seven percent, and Pretty Good Solitaire rates it a balanced game. The game still detects a genuine dead end after the last redeal and tells you when no legal move remains.

Little Forty Solitaire - Play Online & 100% Free

Play Little Forty Solitaire — Forty Thieves With Every Mercy Switched On

Little Forty keeps the Forty Thieves board, two decks dealt into ten columns of four, and then relaxes almost every rule that makes the classic game hard. Columns build down by rank regardless of suit, so any 9 fits any 10. Packed runs move as a unit. The stock turns three cards at a time and can be gone through four times in all, with three redeals. Thomas Warfield designed it for Pretty Good Solitaire as the gentle end of the family, and it plays that way: patient players win it almost every time. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Little Forty?

Goal: build all eight foundations from Ace to King by suit, using both decks.

Setup

Tableau: ten columns of four cards (40 cards), all face up.
Foundations: eight empty piles, two per suit. Build up by suit, Ace to King.
Stock: the remaining 64 cards, face down. Waste: empty.

Rules

Build tableau columns down by rank regardless of suit: the 9 of spades goes on any 10.
A packed run moves as a unit: any descending sequence, whatever its suits, can travel together.
An empty column accepts any card or run.
Click the stock to turn three cards to the waste. Only the waste's top card may be played.
When the stock is empty, the waste is turned over to form a new stock. You may do this three times, for four passes in all.
Foundations build up by suit from the Ace. Cards on a foundation stay there.

Little Forty Strategy

The mercies are real, but three cards a turn means a third of the stock is hidden behind the card on top. That is the whole difficulty.

Count in threes. Each stock click shows you the third card of a group; the two beneath it only appear if you play the one on top. Before you play a waste card, ask what it uncovers, and remember that playing a card shifts every later group by one.
Use the redeals to reshuffle the groups, not to stall. Because the waste goes back in order, the groups of three repeat exactly unless you have played a card out of them. A single well-chosen play from the waste changes which cards surface on the next pass.
Build long runs, and move them to open columns. With rank-only building and whole-run moves, a column can quickly hold a long mixed-suit run. Runs are mobile here, so use them to sweep cards off a column you need to empty.
Feed the foundations evenly across both decks. Every rank appears twice. If one foundation of a suit races ahead, the second copy of a low card can end up buried under a run that will not be broken. Keep both foundations of each suit within a rank or two of each other.

Little Forty in the Forty Thieves Family

Little Forty is a Thomas Warfield design from Pretty Good Solitaire, and the Solitaire Central rulebook describes it exactly: the same as Forty Thieves except that sequences may be moved, columns build down regardless of suit, the stock deals three at a time, and there are three redeals. It is the family's only rank-building run-mover, which places it at the opposite pole from the original: where Forty Thieves wins one game in ten, Little Forty wins closer to ninety-seven in a hundred.

Rule sources differ on two details, and this version follows the Goodsol original. PySol's port lets only a same-suit run move and fills an empty column from the waste by force; the Pretty Good Solitaire text and BVS both let any rank-packed run move and let any card take a space. One play site gives the game two redeals; the rulebook, BVS and PySol all say three.

For the same board with the strict rules, play Forty Thieves; for rank building without the moving runs, play Diplomat.