La Belle Lucie
All 52 cards lie face up in seventeen fans of three and one single card. Build the fans down in suit, one card at a time, and send every card home to its foundation. Two redeals and a merci help when you get stuck.
How to play La Belle Lucie
How to play
Move the top card of a fan onto the next higher card of the same suit: the 6 of hearts on the 7 of hearts. Only one card moves at a time, and a king can only go home. Build the four foundations up by suit from ace to king; any card that can go home goes there by itself. In Classic an empty fan stays empty. Drag a card, or tap it and then tap where it should go; double-tap sends it to its foundation or to the fan where it fits.
Redeals and the merci
When you are stuck, tap Redeal: the cards left in the fans are gathered, shuffled and dealt again in fans of three. You get two redeals, so three deals in all, and a redeal can’t be undone. On the last deal you may use the merci once: pull any one buried card out of a fan by dragging it where it can go, or tap it twice to lift it to the top of its fan.
Tips
A card covering a lower card of its own suit can only leave by being built on, so look for those traps first. Play what you can before you redeal: every card already home is one less to shuffle. Save the merci for a card that frees a whole run.
Levels
Classic is La Belle Lucie as usually played, with two redeals and the merci, and it has the daily deal. Relaxed plays the same way, but any single card may go into an empty fan, which makes it much easier. Every deal on both levels was played to a win by a solver first.
Questions
How do you play La Belle Lucie solitaire?
La Belle Lucie, also known as Fan or Midnight Oil, deals the deck face up in 17 fans of three cards and one fan of one. Move one top card at a time onto the next higher card of its suit, or to its foundation. Build the foundations up by suit from ace to king to win.
What is the merci in La Belle Lucie?
Merci is French for thank you. After your last redeal you may once take any buried card out of a fan and play it, or put it on top of its fan. Here you drag the buried card where it can go, or tap it twice to lift it to the top.
How are the redeals shuffled?
Each redeal gathers the cards still in the fans, shuffles them and deals them in fans of three. The shuffle comes from the deal’s number and the cards that are left, so the same cards left on the same redeal always fall the same way, and Undo stops at a redeal so you can’t pick another shuffle.
Can every game of La Belle Lucie be won?
No. Our solver, which also knows how each redeal will fall, wins nearly four in five random Classic deals within its search limit, and a player who can’t see the shuffles coming wins fewer. Every deal here, on both levels and in the daily, was first won by the solver and the win was replayed through the rules.
What does the hint do?
The hint searches only the deal in front of you, because nobody can know how a redeal will fall. It suggests the move that starts the line getting the most cards home in this deal, says how many, and tells you when it is time to redeal.