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My dad (now 93 years old) used to play a two deck solitaire game with the cards laid out in 10 columns as shown in the picture. In brief:

  1. Two Decks
  2. 10 columns
  3. 1st column has one card, second column has two cards . . . tenth column has ten cards.
  4. Cards alternate face up, face down
  5. Remaining cards are used one at time and only the most recent card that is top of the pile can be used.

I am looking to identify this variant and see if I can find an online version for him.

Two Deck Solitaire

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  • Please add more rules, such as the goal of the game. What do you mean by the top card can be "used"? – ryanyuyu Jun 9 '19 at 19:39
  • ryanyuyu - Not very good at the terminology, but the remaining cards that are not originally placed in the 10 columns are revealed one at a time. If the revealed card can be used then it is placed in the play area, if not another card is dealt on top it, now that card must be placed on the board, before the card below it can be played. – bsutrop Jun 9 '19 at 22:02
  • How do you play the cards on top of each other? Red on red? Red on black? Clubs on clubs? 5's on 4's or maybe 4's on 5's? Do you use a foundation, and do you build from ace up? – Ola Ström Oct 21 '19 at 19:35
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The closest I’ve found is Batsford.

Batsford uses 2 decks, and has 10 tableau stacks going from 1 to 10. You didn’t mention how many foundation piles; but given 2 deck I would assume 8 foundation piles.

The problem is that Batsford only has the top card facing up in the tableau stacks. Perhaps this is a Batsford variant that alternates the cards face up and face down in the tableau stacks...

Batsford is available online at https://www.classicsolitaire.com/batsford.html.

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    Christopher, I tried Batsford and has all of the same rules that my Dad uses. This is a very close approximation, the only difference is the alternating pattern. Thank you for your help. – bsutrop Jun 9 '19 at 21:59
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    Christopher, on second look, looks like Batsford allows you to go though the Reset deck more than once. That is not allowed in the variation I am seeking. It makes solving it difficult. Using shuffled two decks of cards, you end up solving it 1 out 20 times (estimated). Also the fact that there are face-up cards that you are seeking makes the game more fun and adds some strategic elements I found missing in Batsford. – bsutrop Jun 9 '19 at 22:26
  • With only two rule differences it seems very likely to be a variant of Batsford. Hopefully someone else will recognize and know it’s name. Good luck! – Christopher Klaus Jun 9 '19 at 22:34
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    Maybe your dad made this variant. So you can call it Dadsford. – Toon Krijthe Jun 10 '19 at 5:56
  • You can use this like to play Batsford since the other link doesn't seam to work anymore: isolitairegames.com/batsford.html – Ola Ström Oct 21 '19 at 19:45

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