Play Napoleon's Shoulder Solitaire — Where a Space Belongs to the Waste

Napoleon's Shoulder deals the same twelve columns of four as Napoleon's Square, but it plays a very different game. Columns build down by rank regardless of suit, one card at a time, which sounds generous until you meet the rule the game is built around: an empty column may be filled only by the top card of the waste. No card from another column may move into a space, not even a King. So a cleared column is not a parking place for the tableau; it is a landing strip for the stock, and knowing when to open one is the whole art. Two decks, eight foundations, one pass through the stock, no redeal. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Napoleon's Shoulder?

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

Setup

• Tableau: twelve columns of four cards (48 cards), all face up.
• Foundations: eight empty piles, two per suit. Build up by suit, Ace to King.
• Stock: the remaining 56 cards, face down. Waste: empty.

Rules

• Build tableau columns down by rank regardless of suit: any 7 goes on any 8.
• Move one card at a time. Packed runs never travel together.
• An empty column may be filled only by the waste's top card. No tableau card may move into a space.
• Click the stock to turn one card to the waste. The waste's top card may be played to the tableau, to a space, or to a foundation.
• One pass only. When the stock is empty there is no redeal.
• Foundations build up by suit from the Ace. Cards on a foundation stay there.

Napoleon's Shoulder Strategy

Forget what spaces mean in other games. Here they are for the stock alone, and the timing of opening one is everything.

• Open a column when a stock card is coming that needs it, not before. A space cannot rescue a tableau card, so clearing a column early gains nothing and costs you a host. Clear one when the waste holds a card you want to keep, or when the stock is about to deliver low cards with no hosts.
• Keep the waste's top card in mind as a piece on the board. It is the only card that can take a space, so the moment a column empties, the current waste card decides whether the space is useful. Sometimes the right move is to turn one more card first.
• Use suit-blind building to keep twelve different ranks on top. Because any 7 fits any 8, you choose which host takes each card. Spread the top ranks across the twelve columns so the next stock card has a home without needing a space.
• Bank steadily, but do not strip a host you still need. A foundation card never returns. Before you bank a 6, check whether a 5 is coming that would have needed it, especially late in the single pass when nothing can be recovered.

Napoleon's Shoulder in the Forty Thieves Family

Napoleon's Shoulder is one of the Napoleonic variants listed alongside Napoleon's Square: the same two-deck, twelve-column deal, with the building loosened to rank and the spaces tightened to the waste. The PySol collection implements the space rule precisely, refusing any card into an empty column unless it comes from the waste, and the BVS rule page states it in plain words. Its nearest live relative is Diplomat, which builds by rank on eight columns and lets any card fill a space; the two games make a neat pair for feeling what the space rule is worth.

The fill is a permission, not an obligation. You are never forced to put a waste card into a space, so an open column can be held for the right card, which is the decision the game turns on.

For the same deal with suit building and moving runs, play Napoleon's Square; for rank building with ordinary spaces, play Diplomat.