Play Morphy Solitaire — Chessboard, Packed in Alternating Colours

Morphy takes Chessboard and changes exactly one rule. The board is the same: ten piles dealt face up from a single deck, two of six cards and eight of five. The foundations behave the same: they begin empty and unranked, the first card you bank chooses the rank all four will start from, and each then climbs in its own suit past the King and round to the Ace until it holds thirteen cards. The difference is in the tableau. Chessboard wants the same suit; Morphy wants alternating colours. On a black 8 you may place a red 7 or a red 9 — up or down, either direction, and round the corner as well, so a black Ace will take a red King or a red 2. No stock, no waste, no redeal. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Morphy?

Goal: move all 52 cards to the four foundations, thirteen cards each.

Setup

• Tableau: ten piles, all face up — two of six cards and eight of five (52 cards).
• Foundations: four empty piles with no starting rank. The first card played to one decides the rank for all four.
• No stock, no waste, no reserves.

Rules

• While all four foundations are empty, any card may found one, on the foundation belonging to its suit.
• Once one card is placed, the other three may only be started by cards of that same rank.
• Foundations build up in suit from the base rank and wrap past the King to the Ace, finishing at thirteen cards.
• Tableau piles build up or down by one in alternating colours, wrapping both ways: a red 7 or red 9 on a black 8; a red King or red 2 on a black Ace.
• Move one card at a time. Sequences never travel together.
• An empty pile accepts any single card.
• There is no redeal. When no legal move remains, the game is over.

Morphy Strategy

Alternating colours give every card two possible hosts at each rank where Chessboard gives one. That makes Morphy the friendlier of the pair — and it makes the opening choice matter even more, because you will reach further into the board before running dry.

• Count the ranks before you found anything. Look across the ten exposed cards and find the rank that appears most often with its other copies nearest the surface. That first card locks the base for the whole game, so spend a few tableau moves looking before you commit.
• Do not found while a useful build exists. Founding is not progress here; it is a decision that binds three other foundations forever. Make the moves that expose cards first, then choose.
• Two hosts per rank is a trap as well as a gift. Because a red 7 fits either black 8, it is easy to shuffle cards back and forth without uncovering anything. Prefer the host whose pile you do not intend to dig, and always ask what a move reveals.
• Use the wrap deliberately. Aces and Kings are dead weight in most open games; here each will accept the other in the opposite colour, so a stranded King often has a home. Look for an exposed Ace of the right colour before you spend five moves clearing a pile.

Morphy in the Fortress Family

Morphy is catalogued in the PySol Fan Club collection as a direct descendant of Chessboard: the same board, the same foundations that take their rank from the first card banked, and the same round-the-corner building — with the tableau rule swapped from same-suit to alternating colour. The name honours Paul Morphy, the nineteenth-century American chess champion, keeping the chess theme its parent started.

Within this catalogue it completes a set of three games built on one pair of rules. Chessboard packs in suit on ten piles, Selective Castle packs suit-blind and downward only on eight, and Morphy packs in alternating colours on ten. All three let the player choose the base rank and all three wrap, so playing them in turn isolates exactly what the packing rule is worth.

One implementation detail is worth mentioning because it matches how this version behaves. The reference implementation refuses to auto-play a card to a foundation while every foundation is still empty. Founding is not a free point in this family — it chooses the base rank for the whole game — so it has to be the player's decision rather than the interface's. The hint here follows the same principle: while the base is unchosen it will suggest a tableau move if one exists, and offers a founding play only when nothing else remains.

For the same rules packed in suit, play Chessboard; for the strict original with Ace foundations and no wrap, play Fortress.