Play Three Shuffles Solitaire Online for Free (No Signup Required)

Eighteen fans hide the whole deck, and when you stall you can gather them up and reshuffle twice. Call it La Belle Lucie's friendly cousin.

Three Shuffles Solitaire — known in full as Three Shuffles and a Draw — belongs to the old fan family of patiences, the same flowerbed of little three-card fans that gave us La Belle Lucie Solitaire. The whole deck is spread into eighteen fans, and from that spray of cards you try to coax every suit home to its foundation, building each one up from the Ace to the King.

The game takes its name from a traditional rule that made it gentler than its stern parent: when a deal stalled, a player was allowed to gather the fans, reshuffle them, and deal again, and on a final pass even pull one buried card free as a single "draw." That safety net is why the fan crowd has long regarded it as the friendly cousin of La Belle Lucie. This version keeps the reshuffles — when you get stuck, you can gather and redeal the fans twice. It is played with one deck, and skill counts for far more than luck once the cards are on the table.

What makes the fan style so absorbing is how a single buried card can jam an entire fan. Because you may only move the exposed card of each fan, and only one card at a time, the order in which you unpack a fan decides everything. Freeing an Ace early, reading which suits are locked behind their own higher cards, and choosing which fan to break open first are the small decisions that separate a clean win from an early dead end.

If you enjoy Three Shuffles, try Trefoil Solitaire, another member of the fan family, which starts you off with the four Aces already on their foundations.

If you run into anything odd or have an idea that would make the game better, please contact me.

Enjoy playing!

How to play Three Shuffles Solitaire

Layout:

4 foundation piles: Empty at the start. Build up in suit from the Ace (Ace, 2, 3 … up to King).

18 fans (tableau): Seventeen fans of three cards plus one single card, all dealt face-up. Build down in suit — the only card that fits on the 8 of spades is the 7 of spades. Only the top card of each fan is playable, and empty fans are never refilled.

Reshuffle pile: There is no ordinary stock. The empty pile is the tap target — tap it to gather the fans and reshuffle.

Foundation:

There are four foundation piles, one for each suit.

An Ace starts a foundation. A card can be added to a foundation pile only if it's one rank higher and the same suit as the pile's current top card, so the only card that fits on a 5 of hearts is a 6 of hearts. There can be no more than 13 cards in a pile.

The top card of each foundation can be moved back into play if another pile will accept it.

Tableau:

The tableau is dealt as fans of three cards, splayed so every card shows. Only the exposed top card of a fan may be moved.

A card can be added to a fan only if it's one rank lower and the same suit as that fan's current top card, so the only card that fits on a 9 of clubs is an 8 of clubs.

Cards on the tableau that are not covered by another card are free to be played onto the foundation or onto another fan. Only one card may be moved at a time; sequences are not permitted. When a fan is emptied, its space stays empty for the rest of the deal.

Reshuffle:

When no more moves are possible, tap the empty pile to reshuffle. Every card still in the fans is gathered up, shuffled, and dealt back out into fresh fans of three. You get two reshuffles, so save each one for the moment you have squeezed out every last move.