Forty Thieves

Forty Thieves is a Classic Mac implementation of the venerable two-deck patience of the same name, also known historically as Napoleon at St. Helena and Roosevelt at San Juan. The Mac version dates from around 1990 and preserves the strict, low-luck character that has made Forty Thieves a benchmark among solitaire variants.

How the game is played

Two standard 52-card decks are shuffled together. Forty cards (the "thieves") are dealt face-up into ten tableau piles of four cards each. The player builds eight foundations up in suit from Ace to King, while the tableau is built down in suit one card at a time. Only the top card of a tableau pile may be moved.

Why it is hard

Because suit-matched building is required and only single cards may be transferred, Forty Thieves rewards careful sequencing and is famously difficult to win without skilled play. The single pass through the stock further tightens the challenge.

Mac implementation notes

The original Mac release targets early System software and uses standard QuickDraw card rendering. Documentation associated with the title notes a known incompatibility under System 7 in some configurations, where the program may report a system error and exit.

Heritage

Forty Thieves remains a fixture of every major modern solitaire collection, and the Mac shareware version is part of a long line of single-developer card-game ports that defined the platform's early productivity-and-play culture.