Two-deck variant
A two-deck patience game with twenty waste piles and eight foundations. Build four foundations upward from Ace to King and four downward from King to Ace, each by suit. Deal cards one at a time — every card must go immediately to a waste pile or a foundation. Move top cards from waste piles to foundations as sequences allow.
Click the stock to deal a card, then place it on a waste pile or foundation.
Colorado Solitaire is a two-deck patience game with twenty waste piles and bidirectional foundations. Rather than using a tableau with sequences, Colorado deals one stock card at a time and places each card either directly to a foundation (if it fits) or to any of twenty waste piles. Empty waste piles auto-refill from the stock. The game is an access-management puzzle: which pile holds each card determines whether the foundations can receive it at the right moment.
Two 52-card decks (104 cards). Eight foundations: four ascending by suit (A→K) and four descending by suit (K→A). Twenty waste piles start empty; each holds a stack of cards with only the top card available. Deal one card at a time from stock: play it immediately to a foundation if it fits, or place it on any waste pile. An empty waste pile receives the next stock card automatically. Win when all 104 cards reach the eight foundations.
Twenty piles sounds generous, but each pile is a stack — and only the top card of each stack is playable. A card buried under several unhelpful cards is essentially out of reach until those cards are foundationed or routed elsewhere. The key discipline is placing each stock card on the pile where it is least likely to bury something more urgent.
Group piles loosely by rank range: one cluster for low ranks (needed soon on ascending foundations), one for high ranks (needed on descending), and one for mid-ranks. This loosely mirrors the Colorado strategy of keeping related cards accessible together.
With eight foundations — four ascending and four descending — every card has two potential foundation destinations (ascending and descending for its suit) plus twenty waste piles. Before placing a stock card in a waste pile, always check both foundation directions. Missing an immediate foundation play in favor of a waste placement delays the game and increases pile congestion.