How to Play Accordion Solitaire (Rules and Strategy)

Accordion Solitaire is one of the oldest and simplest solitaire variants — and one of the hardest to win. You deal all 52 cards in a single row, then compress them by stacking cards onto neighbors based on a matching suit or rank rule. The goal is to end with a single pile. The mechanics fit on a napkin. The win rate is brutal. Here’s how to play.

What you need

One standard 52-card deck. No jokers. A long surface — physical Accordion needs about three feet of table because the cards fan out in a row. Browser versions handle the scrolling automatically.

The setup

Deal all 52 cards face-up in a single row, left to right. You can deal them all at once before starting, or deal one at a time and play as you go, which is how the older card books describe it. The two are not quite the same game: with everything dealt up front you can plan around cards you can already see, while dealing as you go forces you to decide before you know what is coming.

Once the deal is done, there is no stock, no waste, no foundation, no separate piles. Everything is in one row, and your job is to compress that row.

The goal

Stack all 52 cards into a single pile. That means every card ends up under or on top of another, and you finish with just one stack on the table. This is the only way to win.

How to play

The basic move

A card (or a stack of cards — moves apply to the top of any pile) can move onto another pile to its left if one of two conditions is met:

• The two piles’ top cards share a suit (both Hearts, both Spades, etc.), OR
• The two piles’ top cards share a rank (both 7s, both Aces, etc.).

The card can move in two ways:

• Move one to the left: onto the immediately adjacent pile (one position to the left).
• Move three to the left: onto the pile three positions to the left (skipping two piles in between).

That’s the entire move rule. No alternate distances, no diagonal moves, no swaps. You can only ever move one left or three left, and only if the suit or rank matches.

What happens when a move is made

When you move a card or pile, it stacks on top of the target pile. The pile (or position) that was vacated disappears — every pile to the right of the vacated position shifts one position to the left to close the gap. The row is now one shorter than before.

The new top of the merged pile is the card you just moved (it’s on top of the target). Subsequent moves involve that card’s suit and rank, not the buried cards underneath.

The compression

Each move reduces the row’s length by one. You start with 52 piles (each one card). The goal is to compress down to one pile of 52 cards. Every legal move shortens the row; every poor choice may leave you stuck with no further legal moves before reaching one pile.

Ending the game

The game ends when either:

• You compress everything into one pile (a win).
• You have no more legal moves available (a loss).

There’s no draw, no stock, no rescue mechanism. When you’re stuck, you’re stuck.

Scoring

Accordion isn’t usually scored. The standard outcome is win/loss — did you compress to one pile or not. Some scoring conventions count cards in the longest remaining pile at game end, or count the number of piles remaining (fewer is better).

Some digital versions track wins over multiple games. Win rate is the relevant metric, and it is famously low: classic card references put the odds around 1 in 100, and simple computer strategies win only a handful of deals in ten thousand. Careful lookahead does better.

Common variants

• The Idle Year: The game’s original 19th-century name, a joke about how long a well-shuffled deck takes to work through.
• Methuselah and Tower of Babel: Less common alternate names for the same game. The version recorded as Tower of Babel in the 1940s offered a slightly different move option.
• House rules: Players often loosen the game (for example, allowing a move onto any matching pile to the left) or tighten it (matching on suit only). Agree on the rules before comparing win rates.

Strategy basics

Plan multi-move chains, not single moves

The biggest single insight in Accordion: a move that compresses one pile is usually less valuable than a move that sets up two or three subsequent compressions. Before making any move, scan a few positions ahead and ask whether this move enables further moves or closes them off.

The three-left jump is more powerful than the one-left

The one-left adjacent move is the easy default. The three-left jump is the under-used tool. Because the three-left move skips two piles, it lets you bypass cards you don’t want to disturb yet. Look for three-left jumps that would otherwise require multiple one-left moves to achieve.

Don’t compress prematurely

Every move shortens the row, and shorter rows have fewer move options. Holding off on a “free” compression sometimes preserves options for later. This is counterintuitive — you’d expect “compress whenever possible” to be the right strategy — but Accordion punishes that approach because aggressive compression leaves you with fewer adjacency options downstream.

Read the suit-and-rank distribution

Look across the row and identify clusters of same-suit or same-rank cards. Plan moves that bring those clusters together. A cluster of three Hearts within a few positions of each other is more valuable than three scattered Hearts; the cluster gives you compounding moves.

Recognize when you’re losing

If you can’t find a move that keeps the row shrinking, you’re probably stuck. Most Accordion games end in loss; recognizing the loss early lets you start the next deal sooner. The skill is partly in efficient losing — knowing when to deal again rather than agonizing over an unwinnable position.

Accordion’s place in the solitaire family

Accordion is unusual among solitaire variants for several reasons. There’s no tableau in the conventional sense — just one long row. There’s no foundation pile. There’s no stock or waste. The movement rules are minimal but the option space is wide (you can choose between two move distances at every step). This combination makes Accordion deeply different from Klondike, Spider, or FreeCell, which all share the “build foundation piles by suit” structure.

Loose cousins include Pyramid Solitaire (which removes cards by pairing rather than building down) and Black Hole (which also aims to gather the whole deck into a single pile). For more on these variants and how they compare, see our games like Solitaire guide.

Where Accordion comes from

Accordion is one of the older documented solitaire variants, going back at least to the 19th century: William Brisbane Dick published rules for it as The Idle Year in the 1880s. The name Accordion comes from the way the row stretches as you deal and squeezes together as you play — like an accordion’s bellows. The game has been called several things in different sources: The Idle Year, Methuselah, Tower of Babel. Wikipedia’s Accordion page traces the documented history and naming.

Why play a game you’ll mostly lose?

The legitimate question for Accordion is “if you rarely win, why play?” The answer is the same as for many old-school solitaire variants: the appeal isn’t winning, it’s the puzzle of each individual deal. Some Accordion deals open up quickly and offer satisfaction in finding the path; others stall early, and the skill is recognizing a dead row fast. The game rewards pattern recognition rather than outcome chasing.

A short Accordion session — five or six deals — takes about fifteen minutes and gives you several puzzle-flavored micro-games. That’s a different value proposition from “play one hand of Klondike for thirty minutes.” Different games for different moods.

Play Accordion Solitaire online

If you don’t have three feet of table to spare, our free Accordion Solitaire game lays the row out for you and wraps it across the screen. You can deal one card at a time from the stock, as the older card books describe, or deal all 52 at once and plan the whole row. Tap or drag a pile to move it one or three places left, and use unlimited undo and hints when a deal stalls. The game tracks your wins and your fewest piles, so you can see how close you get to that rare single pile.

Frequently asked questions

Can every Accordion Solitaire game be won?

Not in practice. Human win rates are famously low — classic card books put the odds around 1 in 100, and simple computer strategies do even worse. Exhaustive computer search tells a different story: analysis suggests most deals can be won with perfect play, but finding that line by eye is extremely hard.

What’s the difference between moving one left and moving three left?

One-left moves the pile onto its immediate left neighbor. Three-left moves it onto the pile three positions to the left, skipping two piles in between. Both are legal moves if the suit or rank matches.

Can I move cards to the right in Accordion?

No. Movement is left-only in the standard rules. The game compresses from right to left over time. Some informal variants allow right-movement, but the canonical Accordion is left-only.

What does Methuselah Solitaire mean?

Methuselah is an alternate name for Accordion Solitaire, which was originally called The Idle Year. The Methuselah name evokes the biblical figure who lived 969 years — alluding to the patience required to win.

Is Accordion harder than other solitaire games?

By win rate for human players, yes — Accordion is one of the hardest standard solitaire variants. Compare FreeCell, where almost every deal can be solved (only one of the original 32,000 numbered Microsoft deals is known to be impossible). Accordion is unusual in that many deals may be solvable in theory, yet the winning line is so long and branching that people rarely find it.

The bottom line

Accordion Solitaire is the minimalist’s solitaire — one row, two move distances, simple match rules, brutal win rate. The game rewards pattern recognition and chain planning more than long-form tableau management. Don’t expect to win often; do expect to find the puzzle of each individual deal interesting. Grab a deck, deal the row, and try compressing it. When you need a sub-minute break between deals, the Chrome Dino game is one tab away — even fewer rules, similarly satisfying when it clicks.

Related guides

• How to Play Mahjong Solitaire: Rules and Beginner Strategy
• Mahjong Solitaire Strategy: How to Win More Boards
• How to Play Whist: Rules, Scoring and Strategy