La Belle Lucie solitaire is one of the forms of solitaire known as a fan solitaire game. It works a bit differently from other forms of solitaire and if you’ve never tried Labelle Lucie solitaire, it’s a great version to play. Even if you’re familiar with other forms of solitaire, this game can be a bit confusing and more than a little daunting at first. That’s why we’re going to look at a complete guide for everything you need to know about La Belle Lucie solitaire.
Let’s get started.
About La Belle Lucie Solitaire
The Labelle Lucie solitaire game is a variation of the patience card games known as the fan solitaire games. Fan type solitaire games are games with lots of tableau piles, but each with only a small number of cards in. Free La Belle Lucie solitaire is one of the most popular of these fan forms of solitaire, and it’s a really interesting twist on the classic format with very similar rules.
The rules of this form of the game were first published in English in 1870, in a monumental rulebook that codified many of the games we know as patience or solitaire today. It has a number of other names including Lovely Lucy, Clover Leaves, Alexander the Great and Midnight Oil.
Let’s look at how to play the game.
How to Play La Belle Lucie Solitaire
Playing La Belle Lucie solitaire online is easier than ever now. In terms of where you can play the game, it’s easy to find lots of places for La Belle Lucie solitaire to play instantly. Simply type the game’s name into a search engine and you can play for free in your browser—no need for a La Belle Lucie free download! And the best part is you can find La Belle Lucie solitaire – to play instantly.
The aim of the game is to build up four foundations by ascending value and by suit at the top of the spread. The game starts with all cards dealt into 17 small tableaus—or “fans”—in groups of three, with a single card at the end. At the top you have four foundation piles into which you must first deal the aces and go up from there.
It’s easy to find Labelle Lucie solitaire and play instantly—but you should definitely have a read up on the rules first.
Rules of La Belle Lucie Solitaire
The rules of La Belle Lucie solitaire free online are quite simple, but may still take some getting used to. They are as follows:
- Only the top card of each fan is available for play. You cannot move any more than one card at a time, even if the cards being moved can go into a longer sequence on another tableau. The tableaus can have any number of cards in them.
- Sequences are built up by suit in the tableaus. Fans must be built up with cards of the same suit in descending order. For example, a three of diamonds can only go on the four of diamonds.
- Empty tableaus must remain empty. Unlike in other forms of solitaire, you cannot fill empty tableaus either with kings or any card.
- You can reshuffle the entire spread into new tableaus. This can only be done twice.
- When all cards are moved to the foundations, the game is won.
Knowing the rules is only half the battle, though. Let’s look at strategies for winning.
How to Win in La Belle Lucie Solitaire
La Belle Lucie card games, to be blunt, are quite difficult to win. Fortune is not in your favor as around 66% of all deals in the standard rules are unsolvable. With that said, there are some things you can do to improve your chances:
- Think strategically. You’re definitely going to need luck on your side if you’re going to win the La Belle Lucie solitaire game, but it’s still a game of strategy as well. Think carefully about each move you make and whether it’s the best move for the next few turns you can make.
- Try to build up foundations evenly. You want to try and move all aces up to the foundations before you build the foundations beyond that. If you don’t, then you’re going to severely limit the moves you can make between the fans.
- You are always safe to build on a king because the cards underneath it are blocked regardless.
- Always consider whether the destination card can be moved before you move something on top of it. Once you’ve moved a card, you can’t move it back without undoing your last move. Think about if you can build a longer sequence before you commit to moving a card.
- Play a lot of games. Again, no matter how carefully you play, not every deal is winnable. By playing lots of games you’ll learn the game in much more detail, and you’ll get better at spotting the fatal problems which ended other games prematurely.
Variations of La Belle Lucie Solitaire
There are several variations on the La Belle Lucie solitaire game:
- Trefoil is a variant of the game in which the aces are placed in the foundations straight away.
- The Fan variation allows empty foundations to be filled with a king. This is a very popular rule change as it makes winning a great deal more likely.
- Three Shuffles and a Draw allows you to pick a single card at the end of the game when there are no moves left to move it freely and keep the game alive.
Solitaire games in general don’t usually give you a very high chance of winning. This is definitely true of this form of the game, too, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to play. You can spend hours playing many hands to get to grips with all the little strategies and different methods you can use to improve your chances. La Belle Lucie solitaire is one of the most interesting forms of the game out there.