Deuces or Twos is a

patience (or forbearance) is the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced ...

card solitaire Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are inte ...

game of English origin which is played with two packs of

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...

s. It is so called because each foundation starts with a Deuce, or Two. It belongs to a family of card games that includes Busy Aces, which is derived in turn from

Napoleon at St Helena Napoleon at St Helena is a 2-deck patience or solitaire card game for one player. It is quite difficult to win, and luck-of-the-draw is a significant factor. The Emperor Napoleon often played patience during his final exile to the island of St H ...

(aka Forty Thieves).

History

The game is first recorded by

Professor Hoffmann Professor Hoffmann (1839–1919) was the pseudonym of Angelo John Lewis, an English-born barrister and writer who has been described as "the most prolific and influential magic author and translator until modern times."

in 1892 as The TwosHoffmann (1892), pp. 62–63. and subsequently by Dick in 1898 as The Deuces.Dick (1898), pp. 57–58. These early rules do not seem to allow

sequences In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is called t ...

to be moved between

depots Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

in the

tableau Tableau (French for 'little table' literally, also used to mean 'picture'; tableaux or, rarely, tableaus) may refer to: Arts * ''Tableau'', a series of four paintings by Piet Mondrian titled ''Tableau I'' through to ''Tableau IV'' * ''Tableau viv ...

and they are followed in this regard by Coop (1939)Coop (1939), p. 22. and Moyse (1950).Moyse (1950), pp. 107–108. However most later rules, including Morehead and Mott-Smith (1949, 2001)Morehead & Mott-Smith (1949), pp. 164–165. and Parlett (1979)Parlett (1979), pp. 119–120. allow sequences or part-sequences, as well as single cards, to be transferred between depots. Sources also vary as to whether no, one or two redeals are permitted.

Rules

First, the eight two cards are separated from the deck and placed in two rows to form the foundations. Then, ten cards, four above the foundations and three at each of the left and the right of the foundations, are dealt. These are the bases for the tableau piles. The foundations should be built up by suit up to kings, then aces. In the tableau, building is down by suit, also aces can be built upon by kings. The top cards of each tableau piles are available for play on the foundations or on other tableau piles. Sequences, where in part or in whole, can be moved as one unit. Spaces in the tableau are filled only with cards from either the stock or the wastepile. The stock can be dealt one card at a time, onto a wastepile, the top card of which is available for play on the foundations and on the tableau. There is no redeal The game is won when all the cards are dealt onto the foundations with the aces on top.

Variants

Two variants of Deuces, both of which are akin to Busy Aces, are: * The Square: the twos are shuffled in the deck and there are 12 piles in the tableau, four each above, to the left, and to the right of the foundation spaces. * The Courtyard: as Square, but with aces as bases for foundations.

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

* Coops, Helen L. (1939) ''100 Games of Solitaire''. Whitman. 128 pp. * Dick, Harris B. (1898) ''Dick's Games of Patience'', 2nd Series. 113 pp. 70 games. NY: Dick & Fitzgerald. * Professor Hoffmann ngelo Lewis(1892). ''The Illustrated Book of Patience Games.'' London: Routledge. *

Morehead, Albert H. Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr. (August 7, 1909 – October 5, 1966) was a writer for ''The New York Times'', a bridge player, a lexicographer, and an author and editor of reference works. Early years Morehead was born in Flintstone, Taylor County, ...

Mott-Smith, Geoffrey The Mott-Smith Trophy, named for writer and cryptographer Geoffrey Mott-Smith, is awarded to the player with the best overall individual performance in the Spring Nationals, the spring event of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North Amer ...

. (2001) st edn. 1949''The Complete Book of Solitaire & Patience Games''. Slough: Foulsham. * Moyse Jr, Alphonse. (1950) ''150 Ways to play Solitaire''. Cincinnati: USPCC. *

Parlett, David David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association. His published works include many pop ...