Royal Cotillion Solitaire

What is Royal Cotillion Solitaire?

Royal Cotillion is a two-deck patience game (104 cards) named for the two “dance partners” that feed its eight foundations: a Ladies’ side of four short, overlapping tableau columns, and a Lords’ side of sixteen cards dealt flat and fully open. Like Odd and Even, its eight foundations build in alternating-parity rank order — four climb the odd ranks before the even ranks, four climb the even ranks before the odd ranks — but Royal Cotillion adds real positional constraint: the Ladies’ columns bury two cards under every playable card, and once a column empties it is gone for the rest of the game.

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 — the four Aces form a left column, the four Deuces a right column — leaving 96 cards. Deal 12 of those face-up into the Ladies’ side: four columns of three overlapping cards each, only the frontmost card of each column playable. Deal 16 more face-up into the Lords’ side: a flat 4×4 grid where all sixteen cards are playable at all times. The remaining 68 cards 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. Cards move only from the Ladies’ side, the Lords’ side, or the waste pile onto a foundation — there is no building between tableau piles, and cards never move between the two wings.

When a Ladies’ column’s top card is played, the card beneath it becomes available, but an emptied column is never refilled. When a Lords’ cell is emptied, it is refilled immediately from the top of the waste pile — or left empty if the waste has no card yet. Draw stock cards one at a time onto the waste pile; only the top waste card is playable. There is no redeal: the stock is dealt through exactly once, and the game ends the moment the stock and waste are both exhausted with no legal move remaining. Win by placing all 104 cards on the eight foundations.

Strategy tips

The Ladies’ columns are the only part of the board where cards are truly hidden — each column buries two cards under its top card, and because emptied columns are never refilled, every card you free from a Ladies’ column is gone from that column’s problem for good. Prioritize playing a Ladies’ column’s top card over an equally legal Lords’ or waste card whenever you have a choice, since it is the only move that uncovers new information; a Lords’ cell or the waste top is already fully visible and can wait.

The Lords’ side refills only from the waste, never from the stock. That means once all 16 Lords’ cells are simultaneously full, the only way to open one is to play a card out of it to a foundation — and the only way to fill it back up afterward is a waste-top card. Watch for foundation moves available from the Lords’ grid before you draw: playing a Lords’ card first, then drawing, lets the new waste card immediately refill that cell instead of sitting on top of the waste pile where a future draw could bury it.

With zero redeals — one fewer than even Odd and Even’s single pass — every card that goes to the waste and isn’t used gets one look and no more. Because the Lords’ grid can only refill from the waste, letting the waste pile grow without playing from it wastes two opportunities at once: the buried waste cards themselves, and the Lords’ cells that could have absorbed the current waste top instead of staying empty or holding a dead card.

Royal Cotillion vs. Odd and Even

Royal Cotillion and Odd and Even share the same eight-foundation rank math — both deal one Ace and one Deuce of each suit as base cards, and both build one foundation per suit through the odd ranks first and the other through the even ranks first. The difference is entirely in what feeds those foundations. Odd and Even’s 3×3 reserve auto-refills from either the waste or the stock, so a reserve cell is rarely stuck empty for long and its one redeal gives every stock card two passes. Royal Cotillion splits its feeder cards into two very different piles — a 12-card Ladies’ tableau that never refills at all, and a 16-card Lords’ grid that refills only from the waste — and grants no redeal whatsoever.

That combination makes Royal Cotillion the less forgiving of the two games. A single un-playable card buried at the bottom of a Ladies’ column stays buried forever, and any card that goes to waste without being used has exactly one chance to matter before the stock is gone for good.

Two-deck patience game family

• Odd and Even — eight foundations skip a rank each step, fed by a 3×3 reserve with one redeal
• 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

Reference and related guides

• Royal Cotillion strategy guide
• Odd and Even strategy guide
• All solitaire variants
• Solitaire glossary