Baker’s Dozen is a pure order-of-operations puzzle.
Every card is visible from the first move and nothing is ever refilled, so winning comes down to sequence. The same deal can be won or lost depending only on which order you free your low cards — there is no luck left to blame.
Last updated: May 2026
History and background
Baker’s Dozen is one of the classic open-packer patience games, sitting in the same family as Beleaguered Castle and FreeCell — games where the entire deck is face-up from the start and there is no stock, no waste, and no hidden information. Its name comes from its shape: thirteen columns of four cards each, the “baker’s dozen” of thirteen (4 × 13 = 52).
The game’s defining quirk is applied during the deal rather than during play. Any King that lands in the tableau is automatically sunk to the bottom of its column before the first move. Because cards build downward and only the top card of a column is playable, a King left near the top would permanently freeze everything beneath it. Relocating Kings to the bottom guarantees they can never bury an Ace or low card, which is the single biggest reason Baker’s Dozen is winnable far more often than a fully random open layout would be.
How the game is set up
A standard 52-card deck is dealt face-up into thirteen columns of four. Kings are then moved to the bottom of their columns. From there the rules are short:
- Tableau.Only the top (outermost) card of each column can move. It may be placed on another column whose top card is exactly one rank higher. Suit and color are ignored — a 6 of any suit accepts any 5.
- Foundations. Build each suit upward from Ace to King. Aces are played up as soon as they are free.
- Empty columns.Once a column is emptied it stays empty — it cannot be refilled. This is the rule that makes the game a puzzle.
- No stock, no redeal. Everything you will ever have is on the table from move one. Win by sending all 52 cards to the foundations.
Why the King rule changes everything
In most open packers your hardest blockers are the highest cards. Baker’s Dozen quietly removes that problem: Kings are pre-buried, so they will only ever be played last, straight to the foundations, after their Queen is already home. That means you almost never have to plan around a King during the body of the game.
The challenge shifts instead to the cards sitting aboveyour Aces and Twos. A column dealt as, for example, 9–4–Ace–7 (top to bottom) hides its Ace behind a 9 and a 4. You cannot reach the Ace until both of those find homes one rank up somewhere else on the board. The whole game is the search for an order that frees every low card before you run out of legal destinations.
Baker’s Dozen is won backwards. Pick the Ace or Two you most need, then work out the chain of moves that clears the cards on top of it — rather than playing whatever legal move you happen to notice first.
Strategic priorities in order
- Survey every Ace and Two before touching a card. Note which columns they live in and exactly which cards sit above them. These are your real objectives; everything else is a means to reach them.
- Free Aces and low cards first.An Ace on the foundation unlocks the Two, which unlocks the Three, and each one also removes a card from a column — opening new top cards. Early foundation progress relieves pressure everywhere at once.
- Prefer moves that expose useful cards. A legal move that uncovers a needed low card is far better than one that simply tidies two visible tops. Ask what the move reveals, not just what it places.
- Plan across several columns at once. Because the whole deal is visible, you can map two- and three-step chains: move A onto B to free C, which then accepts D. The best players read these chains before committing to the first step.
- Treat emptying a column as a decision, not a reward.An empty column is permanent dead space — it is only worth creating if the access you gain is clearly better than the card you give up by clearing it.
Decision walkthroughs
A buried Ace under two mid cards
An Ace sits two deep, under a 9 and a 5. There is a 10 available on another column and a 6 elsewhere. The temptation is to grab the first legal move you see.
Work the chain first: the 9 needs a 10, the 5 needs a 6. If both the 10 and the 6 are top cards (or can be made top), you can free the Ace in two moves — do that before anything cosmetic. If only the 10 is reachable, freeing the 9 is still progress because it exposes the 5, and you can hunt for a 6 next.
Two legal moves, only one keeps options open
You can play a 7 onto an 8, or the same 7 onto a different 8. Both are legal. They are not equal.
Choose the destination whose column you are least likely to need to dig into later, and that exposes the more useful card underneath the 7. Stacking onto a column you will soon want to unpack just creates a second blockage. In an open packer, the cost of a move is whatever it buries.
An accidental same-suit run
Because building ignores suit, you have inadvertently stacked the 6, 5, and 4 of hearts together. The hearts foundation is only up to the 2.
That run is now locked until the hearts foundation catches up to it in order — you cannot send the 4 home before the 3. Track these dependencies: a tidy-looking same-suit chain can quietly become a column you are unable to dismantle when you need the space.
Common mistakes
- Playing the first legal move you spot. Reflexive moves bury low cards and waste the open information the game hands you for free.
- Emptying a column with no plan for the space. The empty column never comes back. If you cannot name the cards you intend to route through it, you probably should not have created it.
- Ignoring foundation order on same-suit stacks. A descending run of one suit looks neat but cannot be sent home out of sequence, and it can strand the exact card you needed to move.
- Chasing high cards. Kings and Queens take care of themselves at the end. Spend your attention on Aces, Twos, and Threes, where the game is actually decided.
Recognizing a losing position early
Because nothing is refilled, Baker’s Dozen positions can become unwinnable while the board still looks busy. Watch for these warning signs:
- An Ace or Two is buried under cards whose only possible destinations are themselves blocked — a circular dependency with no entry point.
- The ranks needed to peel a key column (say, the 8 and 9 that would free a Two) are all committed to same-suit stacks that cannot be broken in time.
- You have made several moves without reducing the depth of any trapped low card — a sign you are reshuffling tops rather than excavating.
When you spot these patterns, use Undo to return to the last branch point and try a different order. The earlier you catch a dead line, the cheaper it is to recover.