This game has been around since the 1860s. The “puss” in the title refers to a cat, presumably waiting to pounce on prey in the center of the tableau. Luck is more important than skill in this game, and the odds of winning are 1 in every 4 hands.
HOW TO DEAL Start with a fifty-two-card deck, remove the aces, and place them face up in a two-by-two square. These are your foundations. You begin the game with four empty reserve piles (traditionally the placeholders for these reserve piles are on the diagonal from each ace, but this is not required). The remaining cards are your stock.
WINNING Build four foundations, each by color in ascending rank from ace to king. Suits don’t matter, just the colors.
HOW TO PLAY Turn up four stock cards, one at a time, and play them to any reserve pile. Suits and ranks don’t matter, and it’s absolutely OK to play all four cards to a single pile, or to distribute them however you see fit for easy access later in the game.
The trick, of course, is that you may play cards only from the stock to the reserve, and then from the reserve to the foundations. You may not play cards directly from the stock to the foundations. Herein lies the challenge of Puss in the Corner.
When you cannot move, deal four cards from the stock to the reserves, and repeat until the stock is exhausted. You are allowed one redeal when the stock is empty. Simply pick up the reserve piles and turn them over (do not shuffle).