Rules

How to play Clock Solitaire

Updated October 2026 · 1 player · about 5 minutes a deal

Clock is a card game for one player. You deal the whole deck face down into thirteen piles laid out like the face of a clock, then turn the cards over one at a time, putting each one under the pile of its rank. You win if every card is face up before the fourth king comes out. It is also called Clock Patience. There are no choices to make, so it needs no skill: the shuffle decides each deal. That makes it a calm game to play while you talk, and a good one for a child who is learning the numbers on a clock.

What you need

A full 52-card deck without jokers, and a table with room for a circle of cards about two hands wide. Cards go in this order: ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king. A card's place in this order is its rank. In Clock the suits and colors do not matter at all; only the rank does.

Each rank has its hour

The twelve piles in the circle stand for the twelve hours on a clock face, and the pile in the center stands for the clock's hands. Each pile belongs to one rank:

• Aces go at one o'clock, because an ace counts as 1.
• 2s to 10s go at their own number: the 2s at two o'clock, the 7s at seven o'clock, the 10s at ten o'clock.
• Jacks go at eleven o'clock, because a jack counts as 11.
• Queens go at twelve o'clock, the top of the clock, because a queen counts as 12.
• Kings go in the center.

Dealing the cards

1. Shuffle the deck.
2. Deal the cards face down, one at a time, into a circle of twelve piles: the first at one o'clock, the next at two o'clock, and so on round to twelve o'clock. Put the thirteenth card in the center.
3. Go round again three more times, the same way. Every pile now has four face-down cards.

Some people deal four cards to one pile, then four to the next. The cards are shuffled, so it makes no difference.

Playing

1. Turn over the top card of the center pile.
2. Put it face up under the pile of its rank. Slide it under the pile so that it sticks out and you can still see it, apart from the face-down cards.
3. Turn over the top face-down card of that same pile, the one you just put a card under.
4. Put that card under the pile of its rank, turn over the top card of that pile, and keep going.

Sometimes the card you turn belongs to the pile it came from: a 5 turned from the pile at five o'clock, say. Put it under that same pile, and turn the next card from that same pile again. A king turned from the center pile goes straight back under the center pile, in the same way.

How the game ends

The game ends when the fourth king comes out. Put it under the center pile with the others. The center pile has no face-down card left, so there is nothing more to turn.

• You win if the fourth king was the last face-down card, so every card is face up.
• You lose if any cards are still face down. You never get to turn them.

Why does only the center pile run out? You are sent to the pile at seven o'clock only when a 7 comes up. There are four 7s, and that pile holds four cards, so whenever a 7 sends you there, a face-down card is waiting. The same goes for every hour. The center pile is different: you took its first card at the start, before any king came up. So when the fourth king sends you back to the center, its four cards are already gone.

Play a practice game of Clock Solitaire

The practice game deals for you and turns each card. You click the pile where it goes, and if you pick the wrong pile the Coach explains why. Hint shows the right pile, Undo takes a card back, and Auto finishes the deal for you.

Three things beginners get wrong

Putting a jack or a queen in the center

Only the kings go in the center. A jack counts as 11 and a queen as 12, so they have their own hours at the top of the clock.

Turning the next card from the wrong pile

The next card comes from the pile you just put a card under. Not from the center, unless that card was a king, and not from the next hour round the clock.

Stopping when a card belongs to its own pile

A card turned from its own pile is not stuck: put it back under that pile and turn the next card there. Only the fourth king ends the game.

Questions people ask

Is there any skill in Clock?

No. Every card has one place, and the next card always comes from a pile the rules choose for you. Two people playing the same shuffled deck play exactly the same game. Clock is still worth knowing: it is a gentle way to teach a child the ranks of the cards and the numbers on a clock face, and it is the first game many people learn on their own.

What if the very first card is a king?

Put it under the center pile and turn the next card of the center pile. That counts as one of the four kings.

Do I put the card under the pile, on top, or beside it?

Most rule books say to slide it face up under the pile, sticking out so you can see it. Some say to lay it face up beside the pile, or on top. It makes no difference to the game, as long as the face-up cards stay apart from the face-down ones, so you always turn a face-down card.

What happens to the face-down cards when I lose?

Nothing. They stay face down. Some players turn them over afterwards to see what was left, and count them as a score: fewer is better.

Why is the chance exactly 1 in 13?

The game is lost unless the fourth king is the very last card to come out, and the order the cards come out in is fixed by the shuffle. Mathematicians have shown that, for a well shuffled deck, that happens exactly once in 13 deals on average. Our practice game's own test of 130,000 deals comes out at about 7.7 in 100, which is 1 in 13.

Common variations

Rule books agree on the rules above. These are the small ways people play it differently.

• Watch: a second chance. When the fourth king comes out while cards are still face down, swap it with one of the face-down cards and keep going. The game then ends when that king comes up again. The practice game uses the standard rule and ends at the fourth king.
• Where the turned card goes. Under the pile, beside it or on top of it, as above. The practice game shows face-up cards stacked below each pile's face-down cards.
• Dealing. One card to each pile in turn, or four cards to one pile at a time. It makes no difference.
• Keeping score. Some players count the cards still face down when they lose, and try to beat their lowest count.
• Close cousins. Games with names such as Hidden Cards work on the same idea of a card wandering from pile to pile, with their own layouts and rules. They are not covered here.