Agnes reveals its entire target sequence before you play a single card.

History and background

Agnes belongs to the Canfield family of patience games, a group defined by the wrapping foundation mechanic: foundations do not start at Ace but at a randomly revealed base rank, and the build sequence wraps from King back to Ace as needed to complete the cycle. The family includes Demon (the British name for Canfield), Eagle’s Wing, and Nine Across. Agnes grafts Canfield’s base-rank rule onto Klondike’s seven-column triangle layout, producing a game that requires both the excavation discipline of Klondike and the sequence-tracking of Canfield.

The variant commonly called Agnes replaces Klondike’s Ace-start rule with the base-card reveal and adds reserve piles that receive cards from the stock in batches. These changes sharply increase the planning demand: the sequence you are building is not a fixed A-through-K run but a 13-card cycle that can begin and end at any rank.

How the game is set up

One 52-card deck is used. The deal proceeds in this order:

• Tableau. Twenty-eight cards are dealt face-down into a seven-column Klondike triangle: column one gets one card, column two gets two, and so on up to column seven with seven cards. The top card of each column is turned face-up.
• Base-rank foundation. The twenty-ninth card is turned face-up and placed above the tableau. Its rank is the base rank. One card of each of the other three suits at the same rank is removed from the remaining stock and placed beside it to start all four foundation piles simultaneously.
• Wrapping foundations.Each foundation builds up by suit from the base rank, wrapping from King through Ace when necessary. A base rank of 7 produces the sequence 7→8→9→10→J→Q→K→A→2→3→4→5→6.
• Reserve piles. The remaining cards form the stock. Each time you deal from the stock, one card is dealt face-up to each of seven reserve positions beneath the tableau. Reserve cards are available to play at any time without restriction.
• Empty columns.Unlike Klondike, an empty tableau column in Agnes accepts any card, not just Kings. This is the game’s most valuable tactical resource.

Reading the base rank: your highest-value first action

When the base card is revealed, trace the full 13-card wrapping sequence immediately. If the base is 9, the foundations need 9→10→J→Q→K→A→2→3→4→5→6→7→8 in suit order. The cards just above the base rank (10, J, Q in this example) are the earliest bottlenecks. The cards in the post-wrap segment (A through 8 here) are later risks that many players forget to track while concentrating on the ascending portion.

Scan the seven face-up tableau tops and any already-visible reserve positions for cards in positions two and three of the wrapping sequence. Cards that appear on exposed tops can often reach foundations within the first few moves. Cards that are face-down require excavation planning before any tableau moves are made.

Strategic priorities in order

1. Identify the wrapping sequence and locate the next two needed cards for each suit before touching anything. Base rank visible; sequence traced; card locations noted. Only then make move one.
2. Excavate columns where the next needed foundation cards are buried.Agnes’s Klondike triangle buries cards under face-down stacks. Column seven has six face-down cards under one face-up card. Shallower columns are easier to clear; start where the excavation cost (number of moves required) is lowest relative to the foundation advancement gained.
3. Route reserve cards to foundations immediately when they match.Reserve cards are always accessible. A reserve card that matches the current foundation need goes there before any tableau move. Reserve piles accumulate cards across multiple stock deals; do not let them fill with unusable ranks.
4. Use empty columns as staging areas for any rank, not just Kings.Agnes’s open empty columns give you a temporary holding spot for any card that needs to be moved to access the card beneath it. Stage, move the buried card to its destination, then relocate the staged card. Plan two moves ahead before using an empty column.
5. Anticipate the King-to-Ace wrap before it arrives. When foundations reach King, all four suits need their Aces next. If Aces are buried, begin their excavation while the Kings are still one or two steps away, not after they are played.

Decision walkthroughs

Choosing which column to excavate when two are equally urgent

A reserve card arriving at exactly the right moment

Managing the King-to-Ace wrap transition

Common mistakes

• Treating reserve piles as a dump for unwanted cards. Reserve positions accumulate cards across deals. If early reserve cards are not routed onward, later deals stack on top, leaving the first cards permanently inaccessible. Every reserve card should have a planned destination before the next stock deal.
• Ignoring the post-wrap segment of the sequence.Players concentrating on 9→10→J→Q→K often let the subsequent A→2→3 cards drift to the bottom of deep columns during the early game. Finding them buried when they become urgent is avoidable if the full cycle is tracked from the start.
• Using empty columns for long-term parking.Any card can sit in an Agnes empty column indefinitely, which makes it tempting to park cards that “might be useful.” A permanently parked card eliminates the column as a staging tool and blocks the excavation sequences that depend on it.
• Not counting face-down cards before starting a deep excavation.Column seven has six face-down cards. Excavating from the top requires six moves, each needing a legal destination. Committing to a deep excavation without confirming that destinations exist for every card revealed leads to a stalled mid-excavation tableau.

Recognizing a losing position early

Agnes can deadlock while the board still appears to have cards available. The following conditions together signal a position that likely cannot be won:

• All seven reserve positions are filled with cards that are not in the current foundation sequence for any suit, and the stock is exhausted. The reserve becomes inert dead weight rather than a supply of useful cards.
• The next needed cards for two or more foundations are all face-down, and every currently face-up tableau top has no legal destination in the tableau or the foundations, making excavation impossible.
• Every empty column is occupied, and the cards in those columns are not in the immediate sequence. No staging space remains for the rearrangements needed to reach buried cards.

When these conditions appear, undo to the last decision point where reserve routing or empty-column usage could have been different. Agnes positions frequently hinge on a single reserve card that was sent to the tableau instead of held for the next foundation step. Identifying that branch is usually faster than trying to work through an already-deadlocked board.