Setup & the deal
Two decks are used. One Ace and one King of each suit are set out first as the eight foundation bases — the four Aces will build upward, the four Kings downward, each strictly in its own suit. These eight base cards are fixtures: they never move again.
The remaining 96 cards are shuffled and dealt face up into sixteen piles of six, traditionally arranged in a crescent arc around the foundations. Nothing is hidden — every card in every pile is visible from the start, but only pile top cards ever move.
That makes Crescent a perfect-information game: no card is ever face down and no card is held back in a stock. Everything you will ever get is on the table at the deal, which is why careful players solve far more Crescent deals than deals of most classic solitaires.
Before the deal you pick a difficulty, which is simply your shuffle allowance: Easy 9, Medium 6, Hard 3. Medium is the default; Hard is the classic rule. Restart replays the same deal with the same allowance.
The eight foundations
- Ace foundations build up in suit: A, 2, 3 … K.
- King foundations build down in suit: K, Q, J … A.
- Each foundation takes exactly 13 cards (its base plus 12 more) and accepts nothing once full.
- A card only ever fits its own suit’s foundations — and since both directions exist, many cards have two possible homes. The 8♥ might be the next card for the hearts up-foundation or the hearts down-foundation.
- Foundations do not wrap: the up pile stops at the King, the down pile stops at the Ace.
How to move cards
- Only the top card of a pile may move — there are no runs or group moves in Crescent.
- A pile’s top card accepts the same-suit card one rank higher or one rank lower, and Ace and King count as neighbours — so a King may land on an Ace and an Ace on a King. Piles build up and down freely, changing direction as often as you like.
- Empty piles stay empty. Once a pile’s last card leaves, nothing may ever be placed there — clearing a pile permanently shrinks the board.
- Foundation give-back — the top card of a foundation may be played back onto a pile that accepts it. The eight base Aces and Kings can never leave, and cards never move from one foundation to another.
A worked example: with the 9♣ on top of a pile, exactly two cards may land there — the 8♣ or the 10♣. If a pile top is the K♥, both the Q♥ and the A♥ fit, because Ace counts as the King’s upward neighbour. And the 9♣ itself, sitting on top, may leave for the clubs up-foundation (if it stands at 8), the clubs down-foundation (if it stands at 10), or any pile topped by the 8♣ or 10♣.
Every move works by drag-and-drop or by tapping — tap a pile top and the game plays it to a foundation when that is legal. The rules are identical either way.
The shuffle
When you run dry, spend a shuffle. One shuffle takes the bottom card of every pile and rotates it to the top, in a single simultaneous motion across all sixteen piles. Piles with one or zero cards are unchanged.
Your allowance is set by the difficulty: 9 shuffles on Easy, 6 on Medium, 3 on Hard. There is no way to earn more mid-game.
Because the rotation is deterministic, shuffles compound predictably: the first shuffle surfaces every pile’s bottom card, a second shuffle in a row surfaces what was second from the bottom, and a full six-card pile returns to its original order after six shuffles. Playing cards between shuffles changes each pile’s depth, which is how you steer what the next rotation brings up.
Winning & getting stuck
You win when all eight foundations hold 13 cards — all 104 cards accounted for. There is no auto-finish; the two-directions choice stays yours to the last card.
The endgame is where Crescent deals are won and lost: as the up and down foundations of a suit converge toward each other, the last few ranks in the middle are needed by both directions at once, and a foundation give-back is often the only way to route the right copy to the right pile. Going into those final moves with a shuffle still in hand is a real advantage.
The game declares you stuck only when everything is exhausted at once: no pile top fits a foundation, no pile top fits another pile, no foundation top can return to a pile, and no shuffles remain. Until all four are true, a legal move exists — the Hint button will find one.
Note that the game only enforces legality, not wisdom: it will happily let you send both copies of a rank to the same foundation direction, even though that can make the deal impossible to complete. Watching which copy goes up and which goes down is your job, not the rules’.
Edge cases & fine print
- Two decks means two copies of every card. Each suit’s 26 cards split exactly between its up and down foundations — for every rank, one copy goes up and one goes down. Sending the wrong copy the wrong way can strand its twin.
- Pile sequences may zigzag: 7-8-7-6-7 is a legal same-suit pile history, and the A/K corner may be crossed repeatedly on the piles (only foundations refuse to wrap).
- A returned foundation card is a normal pile card afterwards — it may travel across piles and re-enter either foundation of its suit later.
- Shuffling costs nothing but the allowance; it counts as a move but has no other penalty. You may shuffle even while legal moves remain.
- The Hint prioritises foundation plays, then pile moves that expose a card a foundation needs, then a shuffle, then any legal move at all — if the Hint has nothing, the game is genuinely stuck.
- Undo is unlimited and also restores spent shuffles.
Variants
We play the cardgames.io variant: 16 piles of 6, two-way in-suit building with the Ace–King wrap on the piles, foundation give-backs, and the bottom-to-top rotating shuffle with a 9/6/3 allowance (default 6).
Traditional Crescent descriptions differ mainly in the shuffle count — three is the strict classic rule, which is exactly our Hard mode. Some computer versions randomize the shuffle instead of rotating; ours rotates deterministically, which turns the shuffle from a gamble into a tool. For a two-deck game with hidden cards and dealing, see Spider; for another wraparound builder, see Canfield.
Frequently asked questions
Can you place a King on an Ace in Crescent Solitaire?
On the piles, yes — Ace and King count as neighbours, so a same-suit King may land on an Ace and vice versa, as often as you like. The foundations never wrap: the Ace foundations stop at the King and the King foundations stop at the Ace.
Do the up and down foundations of a suit share cards?
They split the suit exactly. Two decks give you two copies of each rank per suit, and each foundation needs 13 cards — so for every rank, one copy must go to the up pile and the other to the down pile. If both copies of a rank go the same way, the game cannot be completed.
Can you move more than one card at a time in Crescent?
No. Only the single top card of a pile (or a foundation) ever moves. Crescent has no runs, no supermoves and no group drags — every play is one card.
What exactly does the shuffle do to the piles?
It rotates every pile by one card: the bottom card of each pile moves to the top, and nothing else changes. It is fully deterministic — no randomness — so you can work out in advance which cards each remaining shuffle will surface.
Can you put a card on an empty pile in Crescent?
No. Empty piles are dead space — nothing may ever be placed on them. That makes emptying a pile pure profit: it is one less pile to manage and its cards are all somewhere useful.
How many shuffles do you get in Crescent Solitaire?
It depends on the difficulty you pick before the deal: 9 on Easy, 6 on Medium (the default) and 3 on Hard, which is the traditional rule. The allowance is fixed for the whole game, though undoing a shuffle gives it back.
When is a Crescent game officially lost?
Only when no legal action remains at all: no pile card fits a foundation or another pile, no foundation top can come back down, and the shuffle allowance is spent. The game checks all of that and tells you the moment the deal is dead.
Are the base Aces and Kings ever playable?
No. The eight starting cards are anchors — they define the foundations and never move again. Only cards played on top of them can come back to the piles.
Related rulebooks
- Canfield rules — the ruthless casino solitaire — beat the odds
- Spider rules — two decks, eight runs — 1, 2 or 4 suits
- Addiction rules — fill the gaps, sort the rows — 3 shuffles
- Solitaire rules — the classic klondike patience game
Last reviewed 2026-08-05 · play Crescent online free