Card theory

You can play all the patiences on this website with normal playing cards. It is important that you have a complete set of 104 playing cards, which consists of two packs of 52 cards each. The backs of the two packs usually have different colours. Some games only require 32 cards (values: 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace), others 52 cards or the complete set of 104 cards. There are also variants that require a different number of cards or use jokers.

There are also extra small playing cards that are only half the size of normal playing cards. These are more suitable as a large card pattern is often laid out and the normal cards take up much more space. The website Patiencen.org uses its own version of the regular French playing cards with the suits Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds for the graphics, as you can see below. Here the Jack (B) has two spears, the Queen (D) has two flowers and the King (K) has two swords.