How to play
Baker’s Dozen takes its name from the old bakers’ habit of selling thirteen loaves as a dozen. The deal makes thirteen columns of four cards each, so the whole 52-card deck sits on the table, face up, from the very first move. There’s no stock to turn and no hidden card anywhere. Every decision can be worked out in advance, which makes this one of the purest planning games in the solitaire family.
The columns are laid out in two rows, seven on top and six below, with the four foundation spots above them.
One quirk of the deal. Before play starts, any king in a column is moved to the bottom of that column, under the other cards. If a column was dealt two kings, both go to the bottom. Kings can never be placed anywhere except a foundation, so this keeps them from blocking lower cards.
The rules are short:
- Only the top card of a column can move, one card at a time. You can never lift a run of cards together.
- A card goes onto a column whose top card is exactly one rank higher. Suit and colour don’t matter, so any 4 can sit on any 5.
- Foundations build up in suit, from ace to king. Each one starts with an ace.
- An empty column is dead. Once a column is cleared, nothing can ever be placed there again.
- A card already on a foundation can be brought back down onto a column if it fits there. That’s occasionally useful as a stepping stone.
You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. If no useful move remains, the game says so and you can start a new deal.
Controls. Tap a card to send it to the best place it can go, or drag it to choose the spot yourself. Hint flashes a suggested move, Undo takes back moves one at a time with no limit, and Finish appears once the rest of the game is just a matter of moving cards up to the foundations. A move counter and a clock run at the top.
What makes it different
Most single-deck solitaires give you something to fall back on: free cells in FreeCell, the stock pile in Klondike, an empty column you can refill. Baker’s Dozen gives you none of those. The table only shrinks. Every column you empty is gone for good, and every card moves alone.
That turns the game into a puzzle about order. The question isn’t “can I make this move?” but “if I bury this 3 under a 2 now, will I ever dig it out?” Since you can see everything, a bad deal is usually visible early, and a good one can be planned almost to the end before you touch a card.
Strategy
Find the aces first. Before moving anything, locate all four aces and count how many cards sit on top of each. An ace with three cards above it is a project; one already on top is a free start.
Watch what you cover. Placing a 7 on an 8 is harmless if the 8 has nothing important under it. If that 8 is sitting on the 2 of hearts you need next, every card you stack there makes the 2 harder to reach.
Spread, don’t stack. Because a column can never be refilled, piling long sequences onto one column is fine only if that column’s lower cards are already safe. It’s often better to spread cards over several columns so no single pile hides too much.
Kings are anchors, not problems. With kings at the bottom of their columns, those columns are the safest places to build long descending runs. Nothing underneath a king needs rescuing.
Advance the foundations evenly. Racing one suit far ahead can strand cards of other suits that you’d like to place on it. Keeping the four foundations at similar heights leaves more options open.
Use the take-back. When a column needs exactly one more landing spot, a card from the foundation can provide it. Pull it down, use it, then send it back up.
Undo freely. Everything is visible, so Undo isn’t cheating the game; it’s how you test a line of play. Try a sequence, see where it leads, and back out if it jams.
If you enjoy Baker’s Dozen Solitaire, try Batak or Blöf next.
