Competitive patience · 2 players
Two separate decks, eight shared foundations. Race a bot to place more cards while you choose whether to take turns or play at the same time.
Select one of your cards, then choose its destination.
Australian Patience can be played alone or competitively. This table offers both two-player forms against a bot.
Each player uses a separate standard 52-card deck. Deal seven face-up columns of four cards from each deck. The remaining 24 cards in each deck form that player's face-down stock. Start with an empty waste pile beside each stock and eight empty foundations between the players, two for each suit.
Either player may place an exposed tableau card or the top card of their own waste pile on any shared foundation. Start each foundation with an Ace, then build upward in the same suit to King. The player whose card is placed on a foundation gets credit for that card, even when the other player started the pile.
Move any face-up tableau card onto an exposed card one rank higher in the same suit. If the moving card is buried, move it together with every card covering it. Only the moving group's first card must fit the destination; the cards it carries can be unrelated. A King, with any cards on top of it, may move to an empty column.
Turn the top stock card onto your waste pile. Only the top waste card can be moved, either to your tableau or a shared foundation. You may draw again to cover an unusable waste card, but the waste pile is never recycled into the stock. Buried waste cards become available only after the cards above them are moved away.
On your turn, make any number of legal moves in your own tableau and waste pile and to the shared foundations. Drawing one stock card ends your turn. When your stock is empty, press Pass turn instead. Two consecutive passes without a move end the game. Each player may move only their own tableau and waste cards.
Both players may move and draw at the same time. Each still controls only their own tableau, stock and waste, but either can play to any foundation. If equivalent cards are aimed at the same pile, the first successful move takes the space. Here the bot acts at a steady pace so you can see its moves; the game ends when neither side can make further progress, or you may finish once both stocks are empty.
When play ends, count the cards each player contributed to the eight shared foundations. The higher total wins; equal totals tie. Cards left in tableau, stock or waste score nothing. In the solo form, the aim is to place all 52 cards on four foundations, and there is no waste-pile reset.
Australian Patience is documented as an Australian game. Its solo form is a more demanding alternative to familiar patience games: all 28 tableau cards begin face up, yet the one-pass stock and buried waste can make the endgame difficult.
The tableau's group move resembles Scorpion. Cards covering a useful card move with it, even if those covering cards are not in sequence. That freedom creates tactical choices about which cards to expose.
The competitive versions add a second full deck and eight shared foundations. Turn-based play gives each player time for several moves before drawing ends the turn. Simultaneous play rewards speed: both players can fill the same foundation, and timing matters when an identical card from each deck is available.
The two decks are ideally distinguishable by their backs when played at a physical table. At the end, the foundations are sorted by back to count each player's contribution. The online table tracks that ownership automatically.