What is the base rank in Canfield?

The rank of the first card dealt to a foundation. All four foundations start at that rank and build upward in suit, wrapping past the king back round to the ace. If the base card is a nine, a complete foundation runs nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace, two, and up to eight.

What is the reserve for?

It holds thirteen cards of which only the top is playable. Working through it is the central problem of the game — cards buried in the reserve are unavailable, and a deal usually lives or dies on whether you can unload it.

Can I really put a king on an ace?

Yes. The sequence is circular in both directions, so in the tableau a king may be placed on an ace, and an ace on a two. Forgetting this is the most common reason players think they are stuck when they are not.

How many times can I go through the stock?

Unlimited, three cards at a time. Even so, the win rate stays low, because cycling the stock does not help if the reserve is stuck.

Why is Canfield so hard?

It was designed as a casino game where the house profited from players losing. The blind thirteen-card reserve and the single starting foundation deliberately restrict your options, and the win rate with good play is generally reckoned to be well under one game in twenty.

Is Canfield the same as Demon?

Yes — Demon, or Demon Patience, is the usual British name for this layout. Confusingly, some British sources use "Canfield" to mean Klondike instead, so the names are worth checking against the actual rules.

Canfield Solitaire

Canfield was built to be lost. It began life as a casino game where the house sold you the deck and paid out per card, and the arithmetic worked in the house’s favour by a comfortable margin.

Click a card then its destination, or double-click to send it home. The base rank is whatever card landed on the first foundation.

Players	1
Deck	One standard 52-card deck
Play time	6–15 minutes
Difficulty	Very hard — historically a casino game for good reason

How to play Canfield Solitaire

The deal is distinctive. Thirteen cards go face up into a reserve pile — you can see only the top one. Four cards go out as the four tableau columns. One card goes to the first foundation, and whatever rank that card happens to be becomes the base rank for all four foundations. The remaining thirty-four cards form the stock.

The base rank and the wrap

This is what makes Canfield unusual. If the base card is a seven, then all four foundations start at seven and build upward in suit: seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, king — and then wrap round to ace, two, three, and up to six. Foundations are complete at thirteen cards each. The tableau wraps the same way going down, so an ace may be placed on a two, and a king on an ace.

Legal moves

Build the tableau down in alternating colours, wrapping ace-to-king.
Move an ordered run between columns as a unit.
The top card of the reserve is always available. When the reserve is exhausted, an empty column may be filled from the stock or waste.
Turn the stock three at a time to the waste, with unlimited redeals.

Winning

Fill all four foundations with thirteen cards each. Once the reserve, stock and waste are empty the game completes itself.

Strategy

Canfield gives you very little to work with, and the little you have needs spending in the right order.

Empty the reserve above all else

Those thirteen cards are the game. Only the top one is available, so a card you need sitting eleven deep is effectively out of play until you have shifted everything above it. Every move that takes a card off the reserve is worth two that do not, and any tableau card you place should ideally be there to receive a reserve card next.

Get all four foundations started early

With only one foundation seeded, you have exactly one place to send cards. Finding the other three base-rank cards multiplies your options, and until you do, most of the deck has nowhere legal to go.

Use the wrap deliberately

Beginners forget the sequence is circular and stall with a king in hand and an ace showing. King-onto-ace and ace-onto-two are legal in the tableau, and remembering that turns dead positions into live ones. It is the most commonly missed rule in the game.

Do not fill an empty column while the reserve is still deep

An empty column is a place to unload the reserve. Filling it with a random waste card because it fits is how a promising deal seizes up. Keep the space until it is doing the job you need.

Accept that many deals are dead, and restart early

Canfield's win rate is low even with perfect play and unlimited redeals. If you have cycled the stock twice with no change in the reserve, the deal is probably finished. Recognising that quickly is more useful than grinding it out.

Variants

Draw one — turning the stock a single card at a time instead of three raises the win rate substantially and is the usual concession for players who want to finish occasionally.
Rainbow / Storehouse — a relative in which the foundations always begin at the twos and the tableau builds down in suit.
Selective Canfield — you choose which of the first five cards sets the base rank, which removes a large slice of the luck.
Superior Canfield — the whole reserve is visible and empty columns may be filled by any card. Much easier and arguably a better game.
Chameleon — three tableau columns and a twelve-card reserve, with the tableau building down in any suit.

Where Canfield came from

Canfield is one of very few patience games with a documented commercial origin. Richard A. Canfield ran a gambling house in Saratoga Springs, New York, in the 1890s, and the game was offered there as a wager: a player bought a deck for $50 and was paid $5 for every card they managed to get onto a foundation. Since the average number of cards a player got home was around five or six, the house made money steadily — the fifty-two-card jackpot being rare enough to be a good advertisement.

There is a durable naming confusion attached to the game. In Britain the same layout is usually called Demon or Demon Patience, while the name Canfield in Britain is sometimes attached to Klondike instead — a mix-up that David Parlett notes in his surveys of the patience literature. Whichever name you use, the design intent is visible in the rules: the thirteen-card blind reserve and the single seeded foundation exist to keep the player short of options, which is exactly what a house game requires.

Questions people ask about Canfield

What is the base rank in Canfield?: The rank of the first card dealt to a foundation. All four foundations start at that rank and build upward in suit, wrapping past the king back round to the ace. If the base card is a nine, a complete foundation runs nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace, two, and up to eight.
What is the reserve for?: It holds thirteen cards of which only the top is playable. Working through it is the central problem of the game — cards buried in the reserve are unavailable, and a deal usually lives or dies on whether you can unload it.
Can I really put a king on an ace?: Yes. The sequence is circular in both directions, so in the tableau a king may be placed on an ace, and an ace on a two. Forgetting this is the most common reason players think they are stuck when they are not.
How many times can I go through the stock?: Unlimited, three cards at a time. Even so, the win rate stays low, because cycling the stock does not help if the reserve is stuck.
Why is Canfield so hard?: It was designed as a casino game where the house profited from players losing. The blind thirteen-card reserve and the single starting foundation deliberately restrict your options, and the win rate with good play is generally reckoned to be well under one game in twenty.
Is Canfield the same as Demon?: Yes — Demon, or Demon Patience, is the usual British name for this layout. Confusingly, some British sources use "Canfield" to mean Klondike instead, so the names are worth checking against the actual rules.