How to Play Emperor

Objective

Move all 104 cards onto eight foundation piles, one for each ace, each built up in its own suit from ace to king. The ten columns are your working space. The stock feeds you new cards one at a time, and you only get one trip through it, so every move counts.

Setup

Shuffle both decks together. Deal ten columns of four cards each, dealing across in rows: the first three rows face down and the fourth row face up. That uses 40 cards and leaves each column with three hidden cards under one showing card.

Leave room above the columns for eight foundations, which start empty. The remaining 64 cards form the stock. Hold it face down or set it below the columns.

How to play

Whenever an ace becomes available, move it up to start a foundation. Foundations build up in the same suit: ace, two, three and so on to the king. There are two foundations for each suit, since you are playing with two decks.

In the columns, build down in alternating colors: a black six on a red seven, a red jack on a black queen. Only the top card of a column can be moved, one card at a time. When you move the last face-up card off a column, turn the face-down card beneath it face up.

When a column is empty, you may fill it with any available card: the top card of another column or the top card of the waste pile.

When you run out of useful moves, turn the top card of the stock face up. Play it to a foundation or a column if you can. If not, it starts the waste pile. The top card of the waste is always available. There is no redeal: once the stock is gone, the game ends when you have no moves left.

1. 1Move any available ace up to a foundation
2. 2Build columns down in alternating colors, one card at a time
3. 3Turn up a face-down card whenever you uncover it
4. 4Turn the next stock card when you are stuck, then repeat

Winning

You win when all eight foundations reach the king. If the stock is used up and no moves remain, the game is lost. To track progress from game to game, count how many cards you got onto the foundations and try to beat your best.

Variations

Rank and File: the same deal and the same building rules, but you may move a correctly built sequence from one column to another as a single unit. Many computer versions of Emperor use this rule, and it makes the game much easier to win.

Napoleon at St. Helena, also called Forty Thieves: all 40 cards in the columns are dealt face up, and the columns build down in the same suit instead of alternating colors. With fewer cards fitting on each column, it is the harder game.

Tips from the table

Go after the face-down cards first. Each column hides three of them, and most games are won or lost on how quickly you can turn them up.

Treat empty columns as precious. Do not fill a space with the first card that comes along. Use it to free a buried card or to park a card that unlocks a whole column.

Because you can only move one card at a time, long sequences are hard to shift. Build them where they can stay until their cards go up to the foundations.

Before you turn the next stock card, make every move that uncovers a face-down card. Before you send a card to a foundation, check that you will not need it as a place to build in the columns.

Frequently asked