HOW TO DEAL Start with two fifty-two-card decks (104 cards total). Take one ace from each suit and one king from each suit—these will become part of your eight foundations—and place them at the bottom of your tableau.The odds of winning Archway are less than 1 in 100 games. For some, this is reason enough to skip this two-deck monster. For the rest of you, Archway is a true Solitaire challenge requiring an equal mix of both skill and luck.
HOW TO DEAL Start with two fifty-two-card decks (104 cards total). Take one ace from each suit and one king from each suit—these will become part of your eight foundations—and place them at the bottom of your tableau.
Next, deal four piles (twelve cards per pile) face down in the center of the table, and turn up the top card of each pile. This is your tableau.
Finally, deal the remaining cards into thirteen piles organized by rank. For example, deal all aces into a pile, all 2s, all 3s, etc. These thirteen piles are your reserve and should be arranged in the shape of an arch around your tableau, like so:
WINNING The object is to move all tableau and reserve cards onto the eight foundation piles, organized by suit and by rank. On the aces, build in ascending rank (X of diamonds-2 of hearts-3 of hearts…J of diamonds-Q of hearts-K of hearts), while on the kings, build in descending rank (K of clubs-Q of clubs-J of clubs…3 of clubs-2 of clubs-A of clubs).
HOW TO PLAY Once dealt, Archway is simple to play. Move tableau and reserve cards onto your foundations as appropriate. There are only a few restrictions.
Only the top tableau and reserve cards may be played. If a card you need is buried deeply in a tableau or reserve pile, you must wait until all those suffocating cards on top are played.
There is no building. You may not, for example, move a card from a reserve pile onto another reserve pile or onto a tableau pile. Cards may be moved only onto the foundations.
The lone exception to this rule is if there’s a vacant spot on the tableau or reserves, in which case you may move the top card from any other tableau or reserve pile into the vacant spot. Tableau cards can be dealt to a vacant reserve spot, and vice versa.
The game ends when you successfully build all eight foundations or exhaust your reserves and run out of moves.