Napoleon at St Helena is a 2-deck patience or solitaire card game for one player. It is quite difficult to win, and luck-of-the-draw is a significant factor. The Emperor Napoleon often played patience during his final exile to the island of St Helena, and this is said to be the version he probably played. Along with its variants, it is one of the most popular two-deck patiences or solitaires. The winning chances have been estimated as 1 in 10 games, with success typically dependent on the player's ability to clear one or more columns. The game is the progenitor of a large family of similar games, mostly with variations designed to make it easier to get out.
Alternative names include Le Cadran ("The Dial") and, in the US, Forty Thieves, Big Forty and Roosevelt at San Juan.
History
"Napoleon at St. Helena" is recorded as early as 1870 by Annie Henshaw who describes it as a "most excellent game which has the added charm of having been a favorite with Napoleon at St. Helena". The game appears frequently in patience collections of the late 19th century. Lady Adelaide Cadogan (1874) calls it Le Cadran which reinforces a possible French origin. In the 1920s, American sources started recording Big Forty and Forty Thieves as alternative names, along with the early variant forms known as Twenty-Four Card Tableau, Twenty-Eight Card Tableau, Thirty-Two Card Tableau and Thirty-Six Card Tableau. In 1939, the alternative name of Roosevelt at San Juan is first recorded by Coops. The game continues to feature in compilations of patiences and solitaires to the present day, "usually... under the name of Napoleon at St Helena". Arnold (2011) revives the name Le Cadran "to honour a different strand of history."
Rules
The rules of Napoleon at St Helena are follows: Two decks are used (104 cards). Deal four rows of ten cards, face up and overlapping to form a tableau of ten columns with all cards visible. Leave space for eight foundations above the tableau. The player may only move the top card from any tableau column. The player may place any one card in an empty tableau space. The tableaus are built down by suit. The foundations are built up by suit, from ace to king. The player may take one card at a time from the stock and play to the tableau, the foundations, or to the wastepile. The player may use the top card from the wastepile. The player may only go through the stock once. The object of the game is to move all the cards to the foundations to form families built up from ace to king.
Variants
Napoleon at St Helena forms the basis for several variant games, most of which make it easier to win. Common variations are: dealing the aces to the foundations at the start of the game, building the tableau down by alternating colour rather than by suit, and allowing cards built down on top of a tableau to be moved, as a sequence, together. Others include: allowing use of any card from the waste, dealing some of the tableau cards face down, and changing the number of tableau piles and/or the number of cards in each tableau.
Single-pack variants
Single-pack variants include the following games together with their key differences from Napoleon at St Helena: Canister: only one pack is used. Six rows of eight cards each are dealt and four cards to a seventh row overlapping the third to sixth cards. Packing is in alternating colour. Martha: only one pack is used and the Aces are extracted to the foundations before four rows of twelve cards are dealt, the first and third face down, the second and fourth face up. Packing is in alternating colours. Westcliff (American variant): one pack of cards is used. Three rows are dealt, the first two face down, the third face up. Packing is in alternating colours and sequences may be moved between depots.
Double-pack variants
Double-pack variants include the following games together with their odds of winning and key differences from Napoleon at St Helena: