Archway is a sequencing puzzle where every card is in plain sight from move one.
Two decks, eight foundations building in both directions, and a completely open arch reserve: nothing is hidden. The challenge is not information — it is finding the one sequence of arch-to-tableau-to-foundation moves that keeps all eight foundations advancing simultaneously without jamming the four column pipeline.
Last updated: May 2026
History and background
Archway belongs to a small group of two-deck open-information patience games where the layout is completely dealt and fully visible before the first move. Its closest relatives are Crescent (which uses fan rotation rather than a reserve) and Tournament (which has no tableau building at all). Archway’s defining feature is the arch reserve: thirteen piles of cards, one per rank, each freely accessible at any time. This open reserve eliminates the hidden-card uncertainty that dominates most two-deck games and replaces it with a pure sequencing challenge.
The bidirectional foundation rule sets Archway apart from nearly every other solitaire game. Four foundations ascend from Ace to King; four descend from King to Ace, one pair per suit. A 7 of hearts might be immediately needed by the ascending foundation (if it is at 6) or by the descending one (if it is at 8). Tracking all eight simultaneously is the game’s core cognitive demand.
How the game is set up
Two 52-card decks (104 cards) are used. Before dealing:
- Foundations.One Ace and one King of each suit are placed on the eight foundation piles. Four ascending foundations run A→2→3→…→K. Four descending foundations run K→Q→J→…→A. Both piles of the same suit will eventually meet in the middle.
- Tableau. Four columns of twelve cards each, all face-up. Only the top card of each column can move. Cards move one at a time.
- Arch reserve. All remaining cards (104 minus the 8 foundation starters minus 48 tableau cards = 48 cards) are sorted by rank into thirteen piles, one per rank. Any card in any arch pile may be moved at any time, in any order.
- Legal moves.A card from the arch or from a tableau top may go directly to a foundation (if it is the next needed card) or onto a tableau top (no sequence rule applies — any card may go on any tableau top to create a new top).
The bidirectional foundation gap: your primary tracking tool
For each suit, the ascending foundation and the descending foundation are closing toward each other like two approaching trains. The gap between them tells you which ranks are urgent for that suit. If spades ascending is at 5 and spades descending is at 9, the gap contains ranks 6, 7, and 8 — those three cards must reach a spades foundation in the next several moves, in order.
The arch reserve holds many of these gap cards freely accessible. The tableau columns hold others buried under later ranks. The strategic question for each suit is: which of the gap cards are in the arch (free) and which are in the tableau (blocked)? Cards free in the arch need tableau space to route through. Cards blocked in the tableau need excavation moves first.
Before each move, check the suit with the largest gap between its ascending and descending foundation. That suit’s middle ranks are your most urgent cards and should drive every arch extraction and tableau rearrangement.
The arch reserve: free but not free-for-all
Every card in the arch reserve is available immediately, but using an arch card requires a tableau column top to route through. Because only single-card moves are allowed between tableau columns, extracting an arch card means: (1) move the arch card to a tableau column top, (2) move it again to its foundation destination. That second move requires a clear path from the tableau top to the foundation.
This means the four tableau columns are a pipeline, not a parking lot. Each column’s top card is a transaction slot: the card currently there must move somewhere before the next arch card can use that slot. Keeping at least two or three columns cycling (top cards moving to foundations regularly) is what keeps the arch reserve accessible.
An empty tableau column is the most powerful tool in the game. It accepts any arch card unconditionally, turning a two-step extraction into a one-step placement. But empty columns are rare and expensive to create. Spend them on enabling a sequence of several arch moves, not on parking a single card.
Strategic priorities in order
- Scan all eight foundations and compute the gap for each suit before touching anything. This takes thirty seconds and defines your entire opening plan. The suit with the largest gap is where you start.
- Route the most-urgent arch cards through tableau column tops to their foundations. Arch cards at the edge of the gap (the ones immediately next for each foundation) are the highest-priority extractions. Do those first.
- Cycle tableau column tops to foundations as quickly as possible. A tableau top that goes directly to a foundation frees its column slot for the next arch card. Columns that recycle quickly are columns that stay useful.
- Use empty tableau columns to break bottlenecks, not for parking.When an arch card you urgently need is blocked by the current tableau tops, an empty column solves the problem in one move. That justifies emptying a column. Parking a card that “might be useful” does not.
- Prefer arch moves that serve both ascending and descending foundations of the same suit. A card that closes a gap from the ascending side may also expose the next card the descending foundation needs in the arch pile. Look for these double-purpose moves.
Decision walkthroughs
Two suits competing for the same tableau slot
Both hearts and clubs are two cards behind their respective foundations. The only open tableau slot can route one arch card this turn. You have the next hearts card and the next clubs card both freely available in the arch.
Route the suit whose next card is also blocked in the tableau somewhere else, meaning the arch card will advance the foundation and simultaneously free a tableau slot by removing an obstacle. If both are equally in the arch with no tableau dependencies, route the suit whose gap is larger — more moves are needed there, so starting sooner matters more.
Using an empty column to extract a buried arch card
The 7♦ ascending foundation is waiting for an 8♦. The 8♦ is in the arch reserve, but all four tableau column tops are cards that cannot immediately go to foundations, so there is nowhere to put the 8♦ to route it.
Check whether any tableau top can move to any other tableau top (using the free-placement rule). If one can, that frees a slot for the 8♦. If none can, you need an empty column — evaluate whether emptying a short column is worth it for the unlock. A single foundation advancement of a stuck suit is often worth one column sacrifice.
Foundations approaching the meeting point
The clubs ascending foundation is at 10 and the clubs descending foundation is at J. The gap is just Q. But Q♣ is buried under two tableau cards with no clear path out.
This is the classic Archway late-game squeeze. The Q is the single card completing the suit, and it is the hardest to reach. Excavating two tableau cards requires two moves, and those moves need their own legal destinations. Trace the chain backward: what do the two blocking cards need to move? If those destinations exist in the arch or on other tableau tops, execute the excavation sequence now. If they do not, the suit closes after everything else, and other suits should be completed first.
Common mistakes
- Using empty columns to park single speculative arch cards. An empty column used as permanent storage for one card is a column lost for the rest of the game. Reserve empty columns for multi-step unlock sequences.
- Ignoring one foundation direction entirely.Players focused on ascending foundations often let descending ones stall. Both directions need attention or a suit’s gap widens instead of closing.
- Extracting arch cards in rank order rather than gap order. The arch reserve makes it tempting to play ranks numerically from low to high. The gap for each suit, not the rank sequence, determines which card is most urgent.
- Letting all four tableau columns load up with high-rank cards. Four tableau tops that are all Kings or Queens cannot go to foundations and cannot accept arch cards usefully. The pipeline stalls and arch cards become inaccessible.
Recognizing a losing position early
Archway positions can become unwinnable even though the arch reserve still contains many accessible cards. The failure mode is tableau pipeline lock, not missing information:
- All four tableau column tops are high-rank cards that cannot go to foundations and cannot accept any other tableau card (because the free-placement rule puts everything on top regardless of sequence, and all four tops are equally stuck).
- The cards needed to close a suit’s gap are buried at the bottom of long tableau columns, and all the cards above them also have no legal foundation destination yet.
- The suit with the largest gap has its remaining gap cards in the tableau (not the arch), and the excavation chain is longer than the number of free tableau slots available to execute it.
When these conditions appear, try any tableau top rearrangement that cycles a card to a foundation and frees a slot. If no such move exists, undo to the last branch where a different arch extraction choice would have kept the pipeline clear. Archway rewards replaying the same deal: once you understand where the bottleneck formed, the correct arch sequencing is usually apparent on a second attempt.