Aces Up♠

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Game and selected version

Aces Up is a short patience also published as Firing Squad and Aces High. Idiot’s Delight is an ambiguous alias used for other games too. This guide selects the modern rule allowing any exposed top card into an empty space, rather than only an ace. No precise invention date is established.

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Pack and four piles

Use 52 cards without jokers, ranked A–K–Q–J–10–9–8–7–6–5–4–3–2: ace beats king. Shuffle and deal one face-up card to each of four separate piles. The remaining 48 cards form a face-down stock. Leave space beside the layout for removed cards.

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Legal removals

Only the top card of each pile is available. When two exposed tops share a suit, remove the lower; with more matches, remove all except the highest one at a time. Each removal exposes the next card of that pile, so reassess the layout. Another suit cannot justify removal, nor can a buried card. Removed cards never return.

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Empty spaces

An empty pile may receive one exposed top card from another pile. You cannot move a group, extract a buried card or manually build onto an occupied pile. Moving a card does not discard it: it merely uncovers its former pile. An ace cannot be removed because no higher card exists.

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The next four cards

When ready to deal, place one stock card on each of the four positions, including empty ones. New cards cover old tops; removals and moves to spaces become available again. You may deal before exhausting moves, but cannot skip a position. There is no second pass through the stock.

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Winning and stopping

After the stock empties, continue useful legal moves. You win only with the four aces left, one on each pile: 48 cards have been removed. If that goal cannot be reached, the deal is lost. There is no separate scoring, draw or time penalty here; removed-card counts may be kept as personal statistics only.

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Original worked example

The exposed tops are 7♠, J♠, 5♥ and A♣. Remove 7♠ because the exposed J♠ is higher in the same suit. The first space is now free: you may move 5♥ there to uncover its former pile. J♠ cannot justify discarding 5♥ because their suits differ.

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Common questions