How is Congress different from Diplomat?

Two rules. Diplomat deals eight columns of four and lets you keep an empty column; Congress deals eight columns of one and fills an empty column at once from the waste, or from the stock when the waste is bare. Both build down by rank one card at a time with one pass through the stock.

Can I ever use an empty column myself?

Only after the stock and the waste are both exhausted. Until then every space is refilled immediately with a card you did not choose.

What if the waste is empty when a column empties?

The next card is turned off the stock and placed straight into the column. A forced fill can therefore cost you a stock card you never got to consider on the waste.

No. The 96 stock cards are turned once, one at a time.

Why is it also called President's Cabinet?

PySolFC registers President's Cabinet as an alternative name for Congress; the two names describe the same rules.

Congress Solitaire - Play Online & 100% Free

Play Congress Solitaire — Diplomat With the Spaces Taken Away

Diplomat deals eight columns of four and lets you keep any column you empty. Congress deals eight columns of ONE, and the moment a column empties the top of the waste drops into it — or the next stock card, if the waste is bare. Rank build, one card at a time, one pass through ninety-six cards. Also known as President's Cabinet. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Congress?

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

Setup

Decks: two standard decks, 104 cards.
Tableau: eight columns of a single card, face up.
Foundations: eight, empty.
Stock: the remaining 96 cards, turned one at a time to a waste. No redeal.

Rules

Build tableau columns down by rank, in any suit: any 6 on any 7.
Move one card at a time.
An emptied column is filled at once from the top of the waste, or from the next card turned off the stock when the waste is empty.
Once the stock and the waste are spent, a space is yours and any card may enter it.
Foundations build up by suit from the Ace and are one-way.
One card off the stock at a time, and no redeal.

Congress Strategy

Ninety-six cards will pass across the waste once, and eight column tops are all you have to catch them with. You never get a space, so the tops are everything.

Eight tops, eight ranks. Two columns showing the same rank waste an eighth of the board. Place cards to keep the tops spread across the ranks the stock is likely to turn.
Single-card moves mean columns are commitments. A card you cover can only be freed one card at a time. Keep columns short and avoid burying an Ace or 2.
Mind what the fill will drop. Emptying a column hands it to the waste's top card. If that card is one you want on a foundation, play it first; if it is useless, emptying a column is a way to park it.
Play the waste before the board. One pass. A card left on the waste returns only if a forced fill happens to drop it into a column.
Save the last spaces for the endgame. Once the stock and waste are gone the fill stops and a space becomes real; the columns you can empty then are worth more than the ones you empty now.

Congress, Diplomat and Parliament

PySolFC derives Congress from Diplomat with two lines changed — a one-card deal and the forced fill — and draws its eight columns as two fanned groups either side of the foundations, which is a picture rather than a rule; they are a row here. Parliament is Congress with the eight Aces founded before play. The forced-fill pairing with an open-space sibling is one the Forty Thieves family repeats: Corona against Limited, Courtyard against Busy Aces.

Like every game in this family here, the first stock card is left for you to turn rather than dealt to the waste at the start.