Play Easy Forty Thieves Solitaire (Josephine) Online for Free

Easy Forty Thieves, better known as Josephine, is Forty Thieves with the handbrake off. It uses the same two decks, the same ten columns of four, and the same eight Foundation piles, but it lets you move a whole same-suit sequence between columns in one move instead of dragging cards across one at a time. Add a stock you can redraw and you get a two-deck game that rewards planning without punishing you for a single bad placement. Play it for free at Solitaire.com with no downloads or disruptive ads.

What Is Josephine Solitaire?

Josephine is the best known easy variant of Forty Thieves, and it has been played under that name for decades. The layout and the goal are identical to the parent game. The only changes are that sequences move as a unit and the stock can be worked through more than once.

Those two rules change how the game feels completely. In standard Forty Thieves, a long same-suit run in a column is a trap, because everything under it is frozen. Here the same run is an asset you can pick up and drop somewhere more useful.

Objective, Layout, and Rules

You win by building all eight Foundation piles from Ace to King in a single suit, with two piles per suit. You lose only when the stock is exhausted and no move remains anywhere.

The tableau has ten columns of four face-up cards, 40 in total. The stock pile holds the remaining 64 cards face down at the top left, beside the Foundations, and deals one card at a time to the waste pile.

Tableau columns build downward in the same suit, so the 7♣ sits on the 8♣ and nowhere else. You may move the top card of a column, or any same-suit descending sequence starting from the top card, to another column where it fits. Cards go to a Foundation when they are the next rank up in their suit, beginning with an Ace. Any card or sequence can fill an empty column. When the stock empties, you can go through it again in the same order.

Easy Forty Thieves Strategy and Tips

Build runs deliberately. A five-card same-suit sequence is a portable block here rather than dead weight, so it is worth combining cards into runs even when it does not free anything immediately.

Empty columns are the strongest resource on the board, and they are worth more here than in the parent game, because you can move an entire sequence into one. A well-timed sequence drop into an empty column can free three or four buried cards at once, so think before you fill a column you have just cleared. Send cards to the Foundations steadily, but remember that a low card in the tableau is sometimes more useful as the anchor of a run than as the next Foundation card.

Hints cost nothing and point out the best available move. Undo is unlimited, though undoing a stock draw costs 2 points and takes back any points the undone move earned.

Win Rate and Scoring

Josephine wins far more often than standard Forty Thieves, since group moves and the redraw between them remove most of the positions that would otherwise lock up. Games also run faster, because you spend fewer moves shuffling cards one at a time.

Points are earned the same way in all three versions. Each card collected onto a Foundation is worth 10, a completed Foundation pile adds 50, and every unused second out of your first 300 adds 2 at the end. The trade-off for the easier rules is the multiplier: this version scores at face value, while standard Forty Thieves multiplies your total by 1.5 and Forty Thieves Hard doubles it. If you are chasing a score rather than a win, the harder versions pay better.

When to Move Up

This is the right place to learn the two-deck format, and the habits carry over. Once you are winning regularly, standard Forty Thieves takes away group moves and keeps the redraw, and Forty Thieves Hard takes away the redraw as well. If you would rather stay with gentler games, Klondike Solitaire and FreeCell are both easier picks with a single deck.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Josephine Solitaire?

Josephine is an easier variant of Forty Thieves. It uses two decks and the same ten-column layout, but it allows same-suit sequences to be moved as a group and lets you go through the stock pile more than once.

How is easy Forty Thieves different from the standard game?

The layout and goal are identical. This version lets you move sequences instead of single cards, which is the rule that unlocks crowded columns and makes the game noticeably more winnable.

Can you move more than one card at a time?

Yes, as long as the cards form a descending same-suit sequence starting from the top of a column. That whole block moves to any column where it fits, or into an empty column.

Is Josephine easier than Forty Thieves?

Considerably. Group moves and the stock redraw remove most of the dead ends that make standard Forty Thieves, and especially Forty Thieves Hard, so unforgiving.

Does the easy version score fewer points?

Your points are earned the same way, but there is no multiplier on the final total. Standard Forty Thieves multiplies by 1.5 and the hard version doubles.