THE MEET-IN-THE-MIDDLE SOLITAIRE
Crescent Solitaire
Play Crescent solitaire free online — no download, no sign-up, works on any device. Two full decks fan out in a crescent of sixteen piles around eight foundations that build toward each other: Aces climb up, Kings climb down, and the suits meet somewhere in the middle. You get exactly three shuffles to save a stuck position — and because we run a real search solver on every deal, this page can tell you something no other Crescent site does: across 1,000 random deals, the solver proved wins on 5.8% with no shuffles and 45% with all three. Your shuffles are worth more than you think.
- 104
- cards
- 16
- face-up fans
- 3
- shuffles
Learn Crescent Solitaire in 90 seconds: rules, shuffles and tips
The sixteen-fan deal, fan-to-fan moves, how the three shuffles work, and five habits that win more games. Full written rules follow below.
In this video
01 · THE TABLE
How Crescent works
One Ace and one King of every suit are set out as foundation bases before the deal; the remaining 96 cards form sixteen fans of six, all face up. Ace foundations build up in suit toward King, King foundations build down toward Ace. On the fans you move exactly one top card at a time, onto the top of another fan that is one rank away in the same suit — up or down, and the corner turns: a King sits on an Ace, an Ace on a King. Two rules give the game its teeth. An empty fan can never be refilled — spend a fan, and that seat is gone. And when nothing moves, the shuffle button lifts the bottom card of every fan to its top simultaneously — three times per game, no more.
×68
×69
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←Both neighbours of the 7♥ are legal.
King and Ace are neighbours in the fan.
↛EMPTYSpend the seat and it is gone for the game.
02 · THE RESET
What are three shuffles actually worth?
Every Crescent site hands you three shuffles; none of them tells you what the shuffles are worth. We measured it. Our search solver took 1,000 random deals and hunted for winning lines four separate times per deal — allowed zero shuffles, then one, then two, then three — with the identical search budget each time, so the only thing that changes between rows is the shuffle allowance. The floors climb steeply: 5.8% proven winnable with zero shuffles, 13.0% with one, 26.9% with two, 45.0% with three — the full allowance multiplies your proven chances nearly eightfold. These are floors, not totals: the bounded searches left 942, 870, 731 and 550 deals respectively unresolved — those could fall either way, so the floors are what we can prove and the true shares are anywhere from there up. The average best line at three shuffles banked 102.2 of 104 cards; most uncracked Crescent games finish two cards short of home. Deals here are honestly random — no pre-filtered pool — and the full table sits beside every other game we measure on our win-rates page.
03 · THE RULEBOOK
The ruleset, honestly
Crescent has drifted in a century of rulebooks, and sites quietly disagree — so here is exactly what this one plays, and where others differ. The old book rule deals the fans face down with one card showing; every modern implementation deals all 96 face up, and so do we. Classic sources give three shuffles; some modern hosts sell easier tiers of six or nine — we ship the classic three. When a suit’s two foundations meet in the middle, the top card may transfer between them (never the Ace or King bases); one publisher lets whole runs transfer, most move one card, and we side with the majority. And like the modern hosts — though not the old books — we allow a non-base foundation card to return to a legal fan top when you need it back. Every choice is one the game’s history genuinely supports; we just refuse to make them silently.
04 · THE DECISION
Strategy: the middle is a negotiation
With two copies of every card, each suit’s up and down foundations are racing toward the same middle ranks — and where they meet decides the game. Bank greedily up one side and you can strand the twin of the very rank you just sealed away. Watch both directions per suit before you send a mid-rank card home, and remember the transfer move exists precisely to renegotiate the boundary when the piles have met. Fans are the other currency: since empties never refill, a fan spent is board space permanently lost — keep cards in circulation by building fan-to-fan, and let the round-the-corner rule cycle a fan through King–Ace to reach a card the direct road cannot. The shuffles are your emergency brake, and everything about them is knowable in advance: all cards are face up, so you can read exactly what every fan’s bottom card is before you spend one.
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Before banking a middle rank, check the twin card and both directions.
A weak top card still gives another card somewhere to land.
Every bottom card is visible, so the reset is a calculation—not a gamble.
05 · PLAY THE LESSON
Two fixed deals. Two Crescent instincts.
Both positions use the real game engine and solver-verified targets. First learn the opening rhythm; then prove why a shuffle is a move to calculate, not a rescue button to guess with.
01 Bank five opening cards Feel the opening rhythm on this real deal: the first six moves can all be banks. Send five cards home — the counter starts at eight because the Ace and King bases are dealt before you ever move. +
02 Break the shuffle-free ceiling This deal is the shuffle lesson in miniature. The bounded solver’s strongest no-shuffle line banked 14, while a verified line with one shuffle reaches 16. Every card is face up, so read the bottom cards of the fans first; you can know exactly what the shuffle will surface before you spend it. +
06 · THE HABITS
Five habits that win more Crescent games
Crescent is a game of spent resources — fans, shuffles, and the meeting point in the middle. These habits protect all three.
- 01Read both directions
Check both foundations of a suit before banking a mid rank — the copy you bank is easy, the twin you strand is the game.
- 02Keep fans alive
Never empty a fan without a reason. An empty fan is dead space forever; even a useless-looking top card is a seat another card can build on.
- 03Read the bottom
Read the bottom cards before you shuffle — everything is face up, so a shuffle is never a gamble, it is a move you can calculate.
- 04Delay the reset
Hold your shuffles until fan-to-fan traffic is genuinely exhausted; a shuffle spent while moves remained is tempo thrown away.
- 05Move the boundary
Use foundation transfers to un-stick the middle: sliding the boundary one rank often frees a bank on the other pile.
07 · QUICK ANSWERS
Crescent solitaire FAQ
01Is every Crescent solitaire deal winnable?+
No — and we measured it rather than guessing. With all three shuffles allowed, our solver proved wins on 450 of 1,000 random deals — a 45% floor — and exhausted its two-million-position budget on the other 550 without a verdict either way — so 45% is what we can prove, and the rest is honestly unknown. Without shuffles, 5.8% were proven winnable and the other 942 remained unresolved by the bounded search. Deals here are honestly random, with no pre-filtered pool.
02What does the shuffle actually do?+
One shuffle moves the bottom card of every fan to the top of that same fan, all sixteen at once, leaving the rest of each fan in order. It does not re-randomize anything — and since every card is face up, you can work out the entire result before you press the button. You get three per game; undo refunds one if you regret it.
03Can I move cards between the foundations?+
Yes — when a suit’s up and down piles have built into sequence, the top card may cross between them, which is how you renegotiate where the two piles meet. The Ace and King bases never move. This site also allows pulling a non-base foundation card back onto a legal fan top — a modern-web convention the classic books do not mention; see the ruleset section above.
04Why can’t I put a card on an empty fan?+
Because the classic rule says spaces are never filled — every source we surveyed agrees on this one. It is Crescent’s sharpest constraint: sixteen fans at the deal is the most board space you will ever have, and part of the strategy is deciding which fans you can afford to spend.
05Why is it called Crescent solitaire?+
From the table layout: the sixteen fans traditionally curve around the foundations in a half-moon. The arc is cosmetic — some versions draw a rectangle instead — but the name stuck. The game itself is a nineteenth-century two-deck patience built entirely around the meet-in-the-middle foundations.
06How do the hints work?+
The Hint button runs a real search solver on your actual position — the same standard as our Forty Thieves and FreeCell hints. When it proves a winning line within its search budget, hints follow that line move for move; when it cannot, it points at the strongest continuation it found. It will suggest a shuffle only when it genuinely cannot find a better use of your position.