Odd and Even Solitaire

What is Odd and Even Solitaire?

Odd and Even is a two-deck patience game (104 cards) built entirely around a single idea: foundations that skip a rank at a time instead of counting up one card at a time. Four foundations — one per suit — start on an Ace and climb through every odd rank before wrapping around to the even ranks. The other four start on a Deuce and do the mirror image, climbing the even ranks first and wrapping to the odd ranks. There is no tableau at all — every card you play goes directly from a 9-card reserve grid or the waste pile onto one of the eight foundations.

Full rules

Shuffle two standard 52-card decks together. Pull one Ace and one Deuce of each suit out to serve as the eight foundation base cards — that leaves 96 cards. Deal 9 of those face-up into a 3×3 reserve grid; the remaining 87 form the stock.

The four Ace foundations build A → 3 → 5 → 7 → 9 → J → K → 2 → 4 → 6 → 8 → 10 → Q (13 cards). The four Deuce foundations build 2 → 4 → 6 → 8 → 10 → Q → A → 3 → 5 → 7 → 9 → J → K (13 cards). Every foundation is locked to its own suit.

Any of the nine reserve cards, or the top card of the waste pile, may move to a foundation whenever it matches that foundation's next required rank and suit — there is no building between reserve cells and no tableau sequencing of any kind. When a reserve cell empties, it is refilled immediately: first from the top of the waste pile if one is available, otherwise from the top of the stock. Draw stock cards one at a time onto the waste pile. You are allowed exactly one redeal — pick up the waste, turn it face-down without shuffling, and use it as a new stock. The game ends when both the stock and waste are exhausted with no further moves. Win by placing all 104 cards on the eight foundations.

Strategy tips

Because a reserve cell refills from the waste before the stock, playing a reserve card is strictly more valuable than playing the same card from the waste: the reserve play both advances a foundation and immediately pulls the current waste top into an open cell, keeping that card live instead of letting it get buried under future draws. When a foundation move is available in both the reserve and the waste, take the reserve card first.

Each suit occupies two foundations that need completely different rank sequences — the Ace foundation for a suit wants that suit's odd ranks before its evens, and the Deuce foundation wants the reverse. Since two-deck play gives you exactly two copies of every card, track which of the two same-suit foundations is waiting for a given rank; sending a card to the wrong one is impossible (only one foundation will ever accept it at a given moment), but recognizing early which foundation is falling behind lets you judge whether the deal is salvageable.

With only one redeal, the entire 87-card stock effectively gets two passes. Because almost every legal move is forced — a reserve or waste card either matches a foundation's single next required rank or it doesn't — there is little room for tactical error once you understand the rule. The main skill is bookkeeping: noticing when both copies of a rank a foundation needs have already gone to waste unplayed, since that foundation will then stall until your one redeal brings them back around.

Odd and Even vs. other two-deck games

Odd and Even shares its two-deck, no-tableau, reserve-feeds-foundation structure with Sultan, but the foundation math is different in kind, not just in starting rank. Sultan's foundations all count up by one rank at a time (K → A → 2 → 3 → … → Q); Odd and Even's foundations skip a rank every step, so a foundation reads A-3-5-7-9-J-K before it ever touches an even card. That single change means the two same-suit foundations for a given suit are never in a race for the same next card — each rank in a suit has exactly one foundation, of the two, that can legally accept it at any moment.

Because so much of the game is forced (a card either fits the one foundation waiting for its rank or it fits nothing), Odd and Even leans more on luck than Sultan does. With only a single redeal — half of Sultan's two — a deal where the last copies of several needed ranks land deep in the same waste pass is frequently unrecoverable.

Two-deck patience game family

• Sultan — eight foundations count up by one rank around a fixed center King
• Windmill — center foundation plus four corner foundations, two-deck, no tableau
• Crescent — 16 fan tableau piles, eight foundations, wraparound same-suit building
• Gaps — single-deck grid game with a different fill-the-gap mechanic

Reference and related guides

• Odd and Even strategy guide
• Sultan strategy guide
• All solitaire variants
• Solitaire glossary