Demon Patience, commonly called Canfield in the USA, is a patience/solitaire game played with a single 52-card deck, a reasonably sufficient medium space to play on, and, well, a lot of patience because it might take a several tries to successfully complete the foundation. It is with this in mind many additions were developed. These will allow Pyrrhic victories as the player will have dedicated so much time to determining whether the game is truly over or not. The "demon" strikes again!
Demon Patience Rules
It is really easy to set up and functionally play the game. What is difficult is completing the Foundation.Terminology
- Foundation - The top row of cards broken down by suit.
- Reserve - The pile of cards to the left of the Tableau.
- Stock - The face down pile held usually in the left hand used to either populate the Tableau, Foundation, or Waste.
- Tableau - A four column row of cards below the Foundation.
- Waste - The pile of cards revealed from the Stock and found below the Tableau.
Set Up
Shuffle the 52-card deck. Deal 13 cards face down in a pile to make the Reserve. Flip the top card over. Next, place one card above and to the right of the Reserve. This is the Foundation and is the pips used to build the Foundation for each other suit. Finally, deal four face up cards to the right of the Reserve and in a row. This makes up the Tableau.
| Foundation | ||||
| 🂠 🂠 🂠 🂠 | ||||
| Reserve | Tableau | |||
| 🂠 | 🂠 🂠 🂠 🂠 | |||
| Stock | Waste | |||
| 🂠 | 🂠 | |||
How to Play
Move any and all cards from the Tableau that are the Foundation pip from the Tableau or Reserve, replenishing any Tableau from the Reserve until the top card of the Reserve is not suitable for usage. Next, place any cards from the Tableau or Reserve onto the Foundation matching the same suit but in incremental order. For example, 3 goes on top of 2 and A goes on top of K. Next, place onto the Tableau from Reserve or other columns of the Tableau alternating colors (i.e. red on top of black and black on top of red) and incremental order like the Foundation. Once such actions have occurred, deal 3 cards into the Waste. The top card of the Waste may be placed into the Tableau or Foundation, following the rules as outlined earlier.
If at any time the Reserve is exhausted, continue replenishing the Tableau or adding to the Foundation from the Stock. When the stock is exhausted, flip the Waste over and this becomes the new Stock and may be done as much as desired.
End of the Game
The game ends in one of two ways. The most common way is there are no longer any legal plays. In this case, the game is blocked and over. The less common is when the Foundation has 13 cards for each suit. In this case, the game is won!
Scoring Mechanism
Scoring in Demon Patience is simple. Once the round is over, however the reason, such as completing the Foundation or getting blocked, the player starts tallying their points.
First, count all the completed Foundation suits. For example, if all 13 ♦ were placed in the Foundation. Multiply these completed Foundation suit sets by 50. Next, if the game is won, the player receives 100 points. Next, count all the cards in the Foundation. Finally, subtract 1 point for each card in the Reserve. This final score is the players score for the round.
Competing Players
Players might want to get together and play the game. If so, they might even want to compete with each other. Using the scoring mechanism above, players will agree to a certain target score, such as 200 points. Simultaneously, they will play multiple rounds until they reach the pre-determined score. The first to reach the score will shout "The demon is exorcised!" and be crowned the winner.
Optionally, teams may be built. In this case, play is still simultaneous. However, players on the same team will pool the points from each round together to reach the target score. Because it is possible teams will quickly reach the target score, it's preferrable to use a higher target score than under normal competition.
Die of Justice
Once per shuffle of the Stock or per game, depending on what everyone agrees, a six-sided die may be rolled and this determines the number of cards moved from the Stock into the Waste. For example, if a 1 is rolled, only one card instead of 3 is placed on the pile.