How is Penelope's Web different from Streets and Alleys?

One rule. Both games deal the same eight piles of seven and six, build down by rank regardless of suit, and move one card at a time. In Streets and Alleys an empty pile accepts any card. In Penelope's Web an empty pile accepts only a King. That single change removes the family's main escape route and is why the game is rated very difficult.

What can I put on an empty pile?

Only a King. Any other card is refused, and because sequences cannot move together a King always arrives alone. A space is therefore worth exactly one thing: a home for one King you need out of the way.

Are the Aces on the foundations at the start?

No. Unlike Beleaguered Castle, the Aces are dealt into the tableau wherever the shuffle put them, and each must be uncovered by building the cards above it onto other piles before its suit can start.

Can I move a run of cards together?

No. Only the top card of a pile moves, one card per move, even when the cards below it are already in perfect descending order.

Is Penelope's Web winnable?

Rarely. Published rule sources describe it as a very difficult variation of Beleaguered Castle and note that wins are rare. Because nothing is hidden, a loss is always a planning outcome rather than bad luck, and the game tells you the moment no legal move remains.

Is there a stock or a redeal?

No. All 52 cards are dealt face up at the start. There is no stock to turn and no redeal, so every decision is made with complete information.

Penelope's Web Solitaire - Play Online & 100% Free

Play Penelope's Web Solitaire — Streets and Alleys Where Only a King May Fill a Space

Penelope's Web is Streets and Alleys with a single rule changed, and it turns a hard game into a very hard one. The deal is the same: all 52 cards face up in eight piles, four of seven and four of six, with the Aces buried wherever the shuffle left them. The build is the same: down by rank regardless of suit, one card at a time. The difference is what happens when a pile empties. In Streets and Alleys any card may take the space. In Penelope's Web only a King may. The game's name is the point: like Penelope's weaving, progress made by day is easily undone, because the one escape a blocked position had is closed to almost every card. No stock, no waste, no redeal. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Penelope's Web?

Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.

Setup

Tableau: eight piles, face up — four of seven cards and four of six (52 cards), dealt exactly as shuffled.
Foundations: four empty piles. The Aces start buried in the tableau.
No stock, no waste, no reserves.

Rules

Build tableau piles down by rank regardless of suit: any 9 goes on any 10.
Move one card at a time. Sequences never travel together.
An empty pile accepts only a King. Every other card is refused.
Foundations build up by suit from the Ace. Cards on a foundation stay there.
There is no redeal. When no legal move remains, the game is over.

Penelope's Web Strategy

Wins are rare in this game, and the players who get them share a few habits.

Locate all four Aces before your first move. Nothing banks until an Ace is free, and with spaces closed to ordinary cards the only way to reach one is to build the cards above it away, one at a time, onto hosts one rank higher. Count the cover on each Ace and start with the shallowest.
Treat a space as a King's move, not a parking place. Clearing a pile costs six or seven moves and buys exactly one thing: a home for a King. Never empty a pile until you know which King will take it and what that King is currently blocking.
Keep your pile tops spread across the ranks. Because the build ignores suit, the only thing that matters about a host is its rank. Eight tops at eight different ranks give the next uncovered card the best chance of a landing place; two tops at the same rank waste a pile.
Bank cautiously, but bank. Foundation cards never come back, and a banked 5 can no longer host a 4. Even so, in a game this tight the pile you thin by banking is usually worth more than the host you lose, especially when the card you bank was sitting on a pile you need to dig.

Penelope's Web in the Beleaguered Castle Family

Penelope's Web is a member of the open castle family that descends from Beleaguered Castle: games with no stock, nothing hidden, and single-card moves, where the whole challenge is the order of the dig. Streets and Alleys is the family's version with the Aces left in the deal; Penelope's Web is Streets and Alleys with its spaces closed to all but Kings. The same tightening applied to Citadel gives Exiled Kings, and applied to Baker's Dozen gives Portuguese Solitaire. It appears in the PySol Fan Club collection, in Thomas Warfield's Pretty Good Solitaire, and in BVS Solitaire's castle group, whose rule page ends with the honest warning that "wins are rare".

The name comes from Homer. Penelope, waiting for Odysseus, promised her suitors an answer when she finished weaving a shroud, and unpicked each day's work at night. The game earns the comparison: a position that looks won can be undone by a single King sitting where a space is needed, and the closed spaces mean there is rarely a way to buy that King a home.

If you enjoy this shape, try Streets and Alleys to feel what open spaces give back, or Beleaguered Castle, where the Aces are founded before the deal and the game is far kinder.