Rules of the Card Game Aces

Aces is a style of solitaire requiring only a single deck of cards for play. The deck is thoroughly shuffled, to ensure proper randomization of the order of the cards, and the player is tasked with individually removing each card from play. To win the game, the player must successfully remove every card save for the four aces without ending up stuck.

Dealing Cards

Aces involves six different pile of cards. The first pile is the deck, and starts out containing all 52 cards, and is left face down. The second pile is the discard pile, which is where you place cards after removing. Ultimately, the player wishes to move 48 cards to this pile. The four remaining piles are the active piles in the game. The player begins by dealing a card to each pile face up, from the top of the deck. Any time the player has no more moves to make, they can institute a new round of dealing, adding a face up card to the top of each pile.

In order to win, the player must remove all but the aces; so removing is the most important rule to understand. For you to remove a card from one of the four active piles and place it in the discard pile, there must be a card of higher value of the same suit atop one of the other three piles. For the sake of the game, aces are always high, meaning an ace on the top of one pile means you can remove any card of the same suit from one of the other piles. After aces, the royal cards are highest, descending as in other card games from King to Jack, followed by the numbers, from 10 to 2. Some cards, such as a 3 for example, will be much easier to remove, as opposed to a higher value like a Queen.

Moving cards is an essential part of the game, otherwise a pile would become locked down as soon as an ace was dealt to it, as you cannot remove aces. You can move any card, however, in the end you will have to move the aces to their own pile in order to win. To move a card, it must be on the top of a pile and there must also be a pile which does not currently contain any cards. When a pile is reduced to none, you can immediately move any top card from one of the other three piles to that spot.