How to Play Royal Families Solitaire

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Antonia Hoyland, on behalf of Expert Village. This game is called Royal Families. This game takes a standard deck, 52 cards, no jokers. Pull out the aces and the 2s. These are going to form your eight foundation piles. Yup, eight foundation piles. Lay them out as you see here, with the aces on the outside of your diamond, and the 2s on the inside. The 2s should be perpendicular to the aces, sort of forming a T-like shape, depending on how you look at it. Although it looks a little bit like a square or a diamond now, it's actually going to form an X, so make sure to leave room to have that X connect with four kings that will go in those spaces. Deal three cards face up as auxiliary piles, and one card face up as the start of your waste pile. The rest of the cards will become your stockpile. Cards may be placed on the foundations so long as they're built upwards in either odd or even fashion. That doesn't make much sense at first, but think of it this way: if it's an odd card as the beginning of the foundation, you're building upwards odd, if it's an even card, you're building upwards even, therefore you do ace, 3, 5, 7, 9, and jack, and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and queen. The kings go directly in those spaces to make that X. Their freebies. Cards from the stock may be dealt onto the auxiliary piles so long as they go in descending order according to suite, even or odd, as the card calls for. Therefore, if you have a 10 of clubs, you can put an 8 of clubs on it, but not an 8 of spades, or a 7 of clubs, or even a 9 of clubs. The rest of the stock cards can go onto your single waste pile. Only the top card of the waste pile can be played at any given time. Spaces in your auxiliary piles can be filled with cards from the stock, and that's a very good thing. It's sound strategy to go ahead and try to put the highest card you can muster onto the empty spaces. You can also fill those spaces with the top card from the waste pile. If you can't manage to get all of your cards onto the foundations by the time the stockpile is gone, you're allowed to pick up your waste pile, flip it over, and do another deal."