Archway is a

solitaire Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself, usually with cards, but also with dominoes. The term "solitaire" is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout tiles, pegs or stones. These game ...

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...

using two decks of 52 playing cards. Its goal is to bring all 104 cards into the foundation. It was invented by

David Parlett 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 ...

,Parlett, David (2020).
Archway: Lady of the Manor's facelift
''parlettgames.uk''. and is based on an old French solitaire game called La Chatelaine (Lady of the Manor).Craze, Richard (1995). ''The Playing Card Kit'', Simon & Schuster, pp.133-134.

Description

Layout

The game starts by placing one of each

ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...

(A♥, A♠, A♦, A♣) and one of each

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

(K♥, K♠, K♦, K♣) at the bottom of your playing area. These cards will be your foundation. At the middle of the playing area, the tableau is created by randomly dealing 4 columns of 12 cards all face up. All the remaining cards are placed in one of the 13 reserve piles that are placed like an

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

way around the tableau. Each of the reserve piles corresponds to the face value of a card; the aces will be the first one on the left side, the kings will be the first one on the right side, and the 7 will be at the top of your archway.

Playing

The goal is to move cards from the tableau and the reserve piles to the foundation to form 4 piles from ace to king (1 for each suit) and 4 piles of king to ace (1 for each suit). Any reserve card can be moved from the reserve pile to the foundation as long as the card is the next in the foundation suite. Only the top most card of a tableau pile can be moved to a foundation pile. If a tableau pile is empty, any card can be placed at the location of the empty pile.

Winning

The game is won when all eight foundation piles count 13 cards each, each pile containing only one suite and all cards in order, from aces to kings or from kings to aces. The game is lost when no more moves are possible and the foundations are not completed.

Variations

Archway rarely works out successfully, and the chances of winning have been estimated as having less than 1%. The rules described in ''The Playing Card Kit'' make the game slightly easier by allowing cards to be moved from the tableau to the reserve piles. Archway was based on La Chatelaine (also called Lady of the Manor), which begins with eight aces as foundations, with the goal of building all these up to kings. Unlike Archway, the starting tableau consists of four face-up piles rather than four columns where all the cards are visible. Although it is not an open information game like Archway, Lady of the Manor is considerably easier to win, because building on the foundations happens regardless of suit.

References