Archway Solitaire Guide
Rules, objectives, strategy, and history
Archway Patience Archway Patience is a thoughtful solitaire game where every card is visible from the opening deal. Use the guide below to understand the objective, learn the board layout, study the rules, and improve how you play.
Win Rate
Published descriptions of classic Archway usually treat it as a brutally difficult game, with estimates putting the true win rate at less than 1% of deals.
In the first MinistryofSolitaire.com audited benchmark, the selected best-first beam search heuristic won 0 of 500 sampled classic Archway deals (0%).
On the same 500 deterministic deals, the simpler greedy heuristic also won 0 deals (0%). That means the current classic figure is still internal solver output, not a replacement for the published historical estimate above.
- Sample size
- 500 deals
- Wins
- 0
- Losses
- 500
- Audited rate
- 0%
- Average moves
- 29.4
- First run
- 2026-03-24
Run Snapshot
PS Documents\projects\ministryofsolitaire> npm run benchmark:archway
> [email protected] benchmark:archway
> node scripts/benchmark-archway.js
MinistryofSolitaire.com first run: 2026-03-24
classic strategy=beam sample=500 wins=0 losses=500 rate=0% avgMoves=29.4
relaxed strategy=beam sample=2000 wins=2000 losses=0 rate=100% avgMoves=112.1
relaxed audit inspected=5 valid=true
Methodology
The benchmark uses a deterministic internal solver and reports its outcomes in a repeatable way. For general benchmark-comparison background, see the NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook Chapter 7: Compare.
- Relaxed Archway uses 2,000 deterministic seeds, from 1 through 2000. Classic Archway uses 500 deterministic seeds, from 1 through 500, in a smaller but deeper search run.
- Each benchmark compares two deterministic solvers on the same seed set: a greedy reveal heuristic and the selected beam-search heuristic. On Relaxed Archway, beam search improved from 97.95% to 100% on the same 2,000 deals.
- The algorithm is Best-first beam search heuristic: Runs multiple deterministic solver strategies across the same seed ranges, publishes the best-first beam-search summary, and audits recorded wins by replaying every move with reserve-access and state-integrity checks.
- Relaxed Archway audit replays the first 5 beam-search wins from scratch and checks every recorded move against the live rules engine. All 5 audited wins replayed legally.
- Each deal stops when the solver wins, reaches its move limit, hits its search limit, repeats a seen state, or has no legal progress. The current limits are 5,000 moves and 40,000 search expansions for Classic, and 5,000 moves and 25,000 search expansions for Relaxed.
- Relaxed Archway adds one rule only: a tableau top card may return to its matching reserve pile, and the replay audit verifies non-top reserve extraction still stays legal under that ruleset.
What Is Archway Solitaire?
Archway Solitaire is an open-information patience game played with two decks. Every card is face up from the start, so the challenge comes from sequencing and board management rather than hidden information.
This Ministry of Solitaire version keeps the classic double-foundation structure while making the layout readable on desktop and mobile.
Objective
Your goal is to move all 104 cards onto eight same-suit foundations. Four begin with aces and climb upward. Four begin with kings and build downward.
If every foundation reaches 13 cards, the game is complete.
Board Layout
The board has three areas: a 13-pile reserve arch, four central tableau columns, and two foundation groups at the lower left and lower right.
The reserve arch is organized by rank, which means every pile contains only one rank across the two decks. The tableau columns hold 12 face-up cards each, and only their top cards are playable.
History
Archway Patience is generally treated as part of the La Chatelaine or Lady of the Manor family of solitaire games. David Parlett described Archway as his facelift of Lady of the Manor, preserving the family shape while opening the layout for deeper planning.
Its appeal comes from letting careful players read the entire deal and work through it with deliberate, almost puzzle-like decisions.
How To Play Archway Patience
- Scan the 13 reserve piles and the four tableau columns before making a move. Because every card is visible, planning ahead matters more than guessing.
- Move a reserve card or the top card of a tableau column onto a same-suit foundation whenever it is the next legal rank.
- Use empty tableau columns carefully. Any single card may move into an empty column, so they are your main tool for unlocking buried cards.
- Keep both foundation directions moving. Archway uses ace foundations that build upward and king foundations that build downward.
Rules
- Archway Solitaire uses two standard 52-card decks for a total of 104 cards.
- Four foundations begin with aces and build upward by suit from Ace to King.
- Four foundations begin with kings and build downward by suit from King to Ace.
- Only the top card of each tableau column is available to move.
- Reserve piles are grouped by rank in a 13-pile arch from ace on the left to king on the right.
- Any single card may move into an empty tableau column.
- The deal is won when every card reaches one of the eight foundations in correct suit order.
Related Games
Want the easier version? Play Relaxed Archway to send tableau cards back to their matching reserve piles.
For the historical parent game, visit Lady of the Manor to see how Archway grew out of that earlier design.