Guide
How to Play Aces Up Solitaire
Aces Up deals four columns from a single deck and challenges you to discard every card except the four aces. Whenever two columns show top cards of the same suit, the lower one can be discarded — and aces count high, so an ace beats a king and can never be discarded itself.
The OPKA table plays the classic rules: the 48-card stock deals four at a time onto the columns, any top card can move into an empty column, and every deal comes from a seeded shuffle so finished games can be verified for the leaderboard.
How Aces Up is set up
Aces Up uses one standard 52-card deck. Four cards are dealt face up, one to each of four columns, and the remaining 48 cards form the stock.
Each press of the stock deals a fresh row of four, one card onto every column. With 48 stock cards, the round contains exactly twelve deals, and every card dealt stays in play until it is discarded.
- Columns: four piles where every dealt card lands.
- Stock: 48 face-down cards, dealt four at a time.
- Discard pile: the 48 non-aces you must send there to win.
Legal moves
Discard a column's top card whenever another column's top card has the same suit and a higher rank. Aces rank above kings, so the order runs 2 up through King and then Ace on top.
When a column runs empty, move any other column's top card into the space. That is the only way to dig out cards buried mid-column, so empty columns are the most valuable resource in the game.
Deal the next row of four when nothing else is useful. The game is won when all 48 non-aces are discarded, and it is over when the stock is empty and no discard or empty-column move remains.
Aces run the table
An exposed ace beats every other card of its suit, so once an ace sits on top of a column, it discards any same-suit card that surfaces elsewhere for the rest of the game.
That makes uncovering aces the engine of every win: a buried ace does nothing, while an exposed one converts every future deal of its suit into instant discards.
Empty column tactics
Which card you move into an empty column decides most games. Moving a card that covers an ace, or that covers a high card in a suit still heavy on the board, buys discards for many turns to come.
Avoid filling a space with a low card that unlocks nothing — once it lands there, only a same-suit higher top can remove it again.