Rules for Churchill Solitaire?

Question

I've been hearing about the double-deck version of solitaire, played by Winston Churchill, that's way harder than normal solitaire. I can't seem to find the rules posted anywhere. Anyone know the rules?

I watched a video showing the iOS game which is useless to me since I don't use iOS and I'd rather play card games with actual cards. I was able to figure out some of the rules but considering the fact that I beat it the first time I played my make-shift version of it I suspect I was not playing correctly.

Answer 1

Use 2 standard decks of 52 cards and deal 10 piles with the following rules:

Dealing the cards

1. When dealing each row, the first and last card is always face up, while the rest is face down.
2. In each row, after you have dealt the card to the 5th pile, the next card is dealt face up to the "devil's six" pile. The "devil's six" pile is placed on the upper left hand of the tableau. You always deal to the "devil's six" pile after dealing to the 5th pile, regardless of which pile you began dealing in that row. After dealing to the "devil's six" pile, you continue dealing to the 6th pile as normal.
3. For the first row, start with the first pile and deal to the 10th pile.
4. On the second row, start on the 2nd pile and deal to the 9th pile.
5. On the third row, start on the 3rd pile and deal to the 8th.
6. On the forth row, start on the 4th pile and deal to the 7th.
7. On the fifth row, deal face up to the 5th pile directly and deal next card face up to the "devil's six" pile. Then deal a card face up to the 6th pile, and deal the next card face up to the "devil's six" pile.
8. At this point the devil's six pile should have 6 cards in total.
9. The rest of the cards remain face down and form the stock pile.

Gameplay

1. Same as other solitaire rules, you build up in sequence with alternating colors in descending order (K->Q->J->10->...).

2. The entire ordered sequence in the pile can be moved (e.g. If the pile is 2->5->9->8->7, you can move 9->8->7 to a different pile with a top card of 10 as long as they are alternating colors). Also note any number of cards in the sequence can be moved, it doesn't have to be the entire sequence (e.g. you can move 7, 8->7, or 9->8->7).

3. If after moving cards to other piles results in the top card being a face down card, turn the top card face up.

4. If a pile is empty, only K or a sequence starting with K can be placed to the empty pile.
5. Any Ace is immediately moved to the "Victory Rows" (foundations).
6. The cards in the devil's six pile can only be moved to the Victory Rows directly, the cards cannot be used to build any sequences.
7. Only the top card of the pile is available for moving to the Victory Rows, including the "devil's six" pile. You cannot move a card underneath the top card in the "devil's six" pile to the Victory Rows.
8. Moving cards to the Victory Rows is optional. You may, for strategic purposes, choose to leave cards in play and delay moving them to the Victory Rows.
9. You move cards to the "Victory Rows" in ascending order (A->2->3->...).
10. When you run out of moves, you can deal from the stock pile, dealing one card to each pile that does not start with K as the first card of the pile.
11. You win the game when all cards are moved to the Victory Rows.

Answer 2

I haven't played this yet, but from a review the rules are as follows.

Initial Setup

• You need two standard decks of cards, so 104 cards in total.
• Deal 6 cards face-up to the top left of the play area (The Devil's Six)
• Deal out 10 columns of cards: One face up card in the first column, one facedown followed by one face up card in the second, two facedown followed by one face up in the third, three facedown followed by one face up in the fourth, four facedown followed by one face up in the fifth, then the sixth like the fifth, etc, until the tenth like the first, forming an upside down triangle as shown below.

How To Play

Play is the same as normal solitaire with the following differences:

• Cards in the Devil's Six can only be moved to the Victory Row, not the main play area.
• When you run out of moves, deal an extra card face-up on top of each column.

Answer 3

You can only move them when they are in the correct order. You can move all or the bottom part. You cannot pull some from the middle or the beginning and only move those.

Only a king (and its descending cards, if they are in the correct order) can be moved to an empty column.

Answer 4

You do not place a card on top of a pile which starts with a King and descends when adding to the columns (you still place one if there are unturned cards beneath a King). Also, there are many permutations of Devil’s six which are impossible. For instance, any sequence of three descending cards in the same suit can’t be solved since you are unable to clear the second card without getting to the third first. I’m unsure how to formally deal without running into these.