Play Tens Solitaire — Pair to Ten, and Collect Four of a Kind

Tens is a single-deck pairing patience on a wide board: thirteen piles, one card showing on each, with a talon of thirty-nine behind them. Two exposed cards leave together whenever their values add up to ten — ace with nine, two with eight, three with seven, four with six, and, uniquely in this line, a five with another five. The ten, jack, queen and king can never make ten, so they go to four slots below the board — and every slot must hold the same rank, so a set is all four tens, or all four jacks. While any slot is occupied the talon waits, so the board shrinks until the set completes. Also known as Take Ten. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.

How Do You Play Tens?

Goal: remove all 52 cards in pairs that total ten and in reserve sets of four cards of one rank.

Setup

• Board: 13 cards face-up as 13 piles of one, laid out seven piles wide and two rows deep.
• Talon: the remaining 39 cards, face-down beside the board.
• Reserve: four slots below the board, which must all hold the same rank.
• No foundations and no building. Cards only ever leave the game; nothing is stacked on anything.

Rules

• Card values are ace 1, pip cards their face value, jack 11, queen 12, king 13.
• Click two exposed cards whose values add up to ten to remove them both: A+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, and 5+5.
• Two fives pair with each other. No other rank in this game does.
• A ten, jack, queen or king cannot pair. One click sends it to a free slot.
• All four slots must hold the same rank. Once a ten is parked, only tens are accepted until the set completes.
• When all four slots are filled, the four of a kind leaves the game and the slots open again.
• The talon waits. While any slot holds a card, no emptied pile refills.
• You win when the talon, the board and the slots are all empty. You lose when no pair and no slot move is left.

What's the Best Tens Strategy?

• Never park a high card casually. Committing a slot commits you to that rank and stops the talon. If you park a queen with no other queen in sight, the board will freeze and slowly die.
• Wait for two or three of a rank to show together. Thirteen piles is a wide board, which is exactly why the source made it wide: you need the space to see several copies of a rank at once.
• Play every pair you can before committing. Once a slot is occupied nothing refills, so the pairing you did not do on a full board is pairing you will never get.
• Remember the fives. Two fives clear each other, which is the only same-rank pair in the game and very easy to overlook when you are scanning for complements.
• Expect a low win rate and play for the long game. Four of a kind is a demanding target. Clearing one full set is a genuine achievement; two is most of a won deal.

A Short History

Tens is the most demanding member of the Elevens line, and the reason is its reserve. Where Elevens wants one jack, one queen and one king — three ranks, any copies — Tens wants four cards of a single rank, and it stops the talon while you look for them. The open-source PySolFC collection, whose rules this version follows, inverts the condition of its parent class to do it: Elevens rejects a rank a slot already holds, and Tens rejects a rank that differs from one. It is a one-line change with a very large consequence, and it is why the board was widened to thirteen piles — a two-by-seven layout with the last place left empty. The sum was moved down to ten to match, which brings the five into the pairing range and produces the only same-rank pair in the family. The game is recorded under the alternative name Take Ten and is rated a game of luck, which in this case is close to fair: even good play leaves a great deal to the order of the talon.

About This Version

This Tens runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer; once installed it works offline. Unlimited undo, statistics, and a daily challenge that gives every player the same deal that day.

Other Solitaire Games to Try

• Nines — pairs to nine, a solo nine, and one of each high rank
• Elevens — pairs to eleven, and a much gentler reserve
• Elevens Too — Elevens with the talon held back
• Thirteens — pairs to thirteen on a row of ten piles