Kings in the Corner

Players and equipment

Two to six players, each for themselves, and a standard 52-card pack with no jokers. Four is the best number. Kings are high and aces are low: the order runs king, queen, jack, ten, down through the numbers to the ace at the bottom. You need a table with room in the middle for a cross of four piles and the four corners between them, because the whole game is played onto that layout and the piles fan out as they grow.

It is a patience played against other people. Everything you know from solitaire about building down in alternating colours is here, and the difference is that you are racing to get rid of your hand before the others get rid of theirs.

SquareScores keeps the running total. A deal is a round on the score table, every player enters their own penalty for the cards they are left holding, and the lowest total wins when somebody reaches the line.

The deal

The first dealer is chosen at random; after that the deal passes to the left. Deal seven cards each, one at a time, and put the rest face down in the middle as the stock. Turn the top four cards of the stock face up and lay them around it, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south and one to the west. Those four are the foundation piles, and the four gaps between them, the diagonals, are the corners.

If any of those four starting cards is a king, or fits onto one of the other three, the player to the dealer's left tidies it before play starts: they move the king into a corner, or the card onto the pile it fits, and fill the space with any card from their hand.

Play

The player to the dealer's left goes first and the turn passes to the left. On your turn make as many of these moves as you can, or want to, in any order:

Build on a pile

A card from your hand one rank below the top card and of the other colour: a red 6 on a black 7

Open a corner

A king from your hand into any empty corner, which is then built on the same way

Move a pile

A whole pile onto another when its bottom card fits the other pile's top card: black 4, red 3 onto a red 5

Fill a space

Any card from your hand, a king included, onto a north, east, south or west spot left empty by a moved pile; an empty corner takes a king only

Cards on a pile overlap so the whole sequence shows. A pile topped by an ace is finished: nothing goes below an ace, so that pile is closed for the rest of the deal. A king never goes onto another card: it opens a corner, or fills an emptied north, east, south or west spot like any other card. There are four corners for four kings.

Moving a pile is the move that wins games. The pile that moves takes its whole sequence with it, and the spot it left is empty, so you can drop any card you like there and start a new pile under your own control. The corner piles never move and are never emptied: once a king is in a corner, it stays.

When you have made every play you want to, draw one card from the stock. The draw ends your turn. If you cannot play anything, or choose not to, your turn is simply the draw. When the stock is gone you play on without drawing, and a turn with nothing to play is a pass.

The deal ends the moment somebody plays the last card from their hand, or when the stock is empty and nobody can or will play.

Scoring

The player who went out scores nothing for the deal. Everybody else counts the cards still in their hand and enters that number as a penalty.

A king

10

Left in your hand when the deal ends

Any other card

1

Queen down to ace, each

Went out

0

Played the last card from your hand

Kings are the whole lesson of the count. Every other card is one point, so a hand of five ordinary cards is five, but a single king you were saving for a corner that never opened is ten on its own. On SquareScores each player enters their own penalty in their own column: the player who went out enters 0, and everybody else the number they counted. The totals build deal by deal. The line is 50, the host can move it on the Host tab, and because the lowest total wins, the table plays until somebody's total reaches the line and the player with the lowest total takes the match. End match banks it. The app deals nothing and never sees a card; the counting is yours, and the sheet only adds it up.

A worked deal

Four players: Alice, Ben, Cara and Dev. The stock runs low and Alice plays her last card, a black 3 onto a red 4, and the deal ends at once. The other three turn their hands over.

Alice

0

Went out

Ben

10 + 1 + 1 = 12

King of spades, 9 of hearts, 2 of clubs

Cara

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4

8 of diamonds, 5 of clubs, 5 of spades, jack of hearts

Dev

10 + 10 = 20

King of hearts, king of clubs

Four rows, four numbers entered. Dev had two kings and only two cards, and his hand of two cost five times Cara's hand of four. Ben's one king is most of his twelve. After one deal Alice is on 0, Cara 4, Ben 12 and Dev 20, and with the line at 50 Dev has used up a good part of his room in a single hand.

Ending

Deal follows deal, the deal passing to the left, until at the end of a deal somebody's total is 50 or more. The player with the lowest total at that moment wins. If the two lowest are level, tables differ: the sheet files a draw, and a table that wants one winner can agree to play one more deal to split them. Tables that want a shorter game play to 25, and the host moves the line to suit.

Get the kings down

A king in your hand is ten points the moment somebody else goes out, and it is only playable into an empty corner or an emptied spot. So play a king the first turn you can, even when you would rather build first. Four corners and four kings means that every king not yet played has a space waiting for it, but a king drawn on the last turn of the deal is ten points you cannot do anything about. The player who draws a king late and the player who kept one back look the same on the sheet.

Move piles to make spaces

Building a card onto a pile sheds one card. Moving a pile onto another sheds nothing, but it empties a spot, and an empty spot takes any card at all. That is the move that clears a hand: a pile moved, a card dropped into the gap, then the next card built onto that, and three cards gone in one turn. Look for the move before you look at your hand, because the gap you make is worth more than the card you play.

Count what is still to come

Eight piles, each building down, and the colours alternate on every one of them, so a black 7 wants a red 6 and nothing else. Watch what the piles are asking for and what you hold. If three piles are waiting for a red 6 and both red sixes are already played lower down, those three piles are dead until somebody moves one. Keep the cards that have somewhere to go and shed the ones whose places are closing.

Do not open a corner for the others

A corner pile is built on just like a foundation, and the queen of the other colour that goes onto your king may be in somebody else's hand. There is no way to avoid that, since a king has to start a pile of its own, but there is a choice about timing when you hold a king and a queen of the other colour: play both in the same turn so the gift goes to you.

Watch the stock

Every turn ends with a draw, so your hand only shrinks when you play more than one card a turn. Early in the deal a bad draw costs little. Late in the deal, with the stock nearly gone, a turn where you play nothing is a turn where somebody else may go out, and the cards you drew are all counted. When the stock is empty the drawing stops and the deal becomes a pure race, so by then your hand wants to be small and made of cards with places to go.

Pip values

Cards left in hand count their face value instead of a flat one each.

Ace

25

Left in hand

King, queen or jack

10

Each

Number card

2–10

Its pips

The line rises to 100 or 250, or the table plays a fixed number of deals and the lowest total wins. Hands cost more and the swings are bigger; a hand of two tens and an ace is 45 in one go.

Fives and tens

A rougher count that some tables prefer, played to 50.

King, queen or jack

10

Each

Ten down to six

5

Each

Five down to ace

1

Each

One version has a player who goes out on the very first turn of the game "score 5", without saying which way the 5 runs on a sheet where points are penalties. Agree before the deal whether it is taken off that player's total or added to everybody else's.

Chips and the pot

Everybody puts a chip in the pot before the deal, and a player who draws without playing a card pays another. The first out takes the pot and collects a chip from each player for every card left in their hand, ten for a king. Play it for matchsticks or for points on the sheet: enter each player's payment as their penalty for the deal, and the player who took the pot enters 0.

Draw first

Some tables draw at the start of the turn instead of the end. It gives you one more card to play with before you have to pass, and it makes the end of a turn less obvious, so players knock or say pass. Some draw two cards a turn, which makes the hands bigger and the deal longer.

Kings must be played

A rule that a king has to go to a corner at the first chance, with a penalty of three points for holding one back. It is hard to police, since nobody can see when you drew the king, and the ordinary ten-point penalty for a king left in hand does the same job without an argument.

Building in suit

The corner piles are built down in suit rather than in alternating colours, a king of hearts taking only the queen of hearts. It makes the corners slower to grow and the deal longer. Some tables build every pile in suit, which can leave one suit with nowhere to go until a king of that suit opens a corner.

Four cards each

Each player is dealt four cards instead of seven, and the deal cannot end until the stock is gone. A player who plays their last card while there is still a stock draws another; if it fits an empty space they must play it there and draw again. A longer, more even game.

Jokers

Two jokers are shuffled in and a joker stands for any card. A joker played where a king would go, or on a corner pile in place of a particular card, blocks the real card from being played there, and that can be used to shut an opponent out of a corner. It cuts both ways, because the king it blocks may be the next card you draw.

How do you play Kings in the Corner?

Deal seven cards each and turn four from the stock as the north, east, south and west piles. On your turn play cards from your hand onto the piles, each one rank lower and the other colour from the card it covers; put a king into an empty corner to start a new pile; move a whole pile onto another if it fits; fill an emptied spot with any card. Then draw one card, which ends your turn. The first player to empty their hand ends the deal, and the others count the cards they are left with as penalty points.

How many cards do you deal in Kings in the Corner?

Seven each, whatever the number of players, and then four face up from the stock to start the piles. With six players that is forty-six cards out of the fifty-two, so six is as many as the pack allows.

What are kings worth in Kings in the Corner?

Ten points against you if one is left in your hand when the deal ends. Every other card is one point. That is why the first thing to do with a king is to put it in a corner.

Can you move a pile in Kings in the Corner?

Yes. A whole foundation pile can be moved onto another pile when its bottom card is one rank lower and the opposite colour of the other pile's top card. The spot it leaves behind is empty, and any card from your hand can go there. The corner piles, the ones started with a king, never move.

What happens when the stock runs out in Kings in the Corner?

Play goes on without drawing. A turn becomes playing what you can and then passing. The deal ends when somebody plays their last card, or when nobody can or will play, and the cards still in hand are counted either way.

Who wins Kings in the Corner?

The player with the lowest total of penalty points when somebody's total reaches the line, usually 50, at the end of a deal. Going out wins the deal and scores nothing; the losers of the deal count a king as ten and every other card as one.

Can two people play Kings in the Corner?

Yes, and it works well. Deal seven each as usual; with only two hands in play the stock lasts longer and the deal becomes more of a patience, with both players building the same layout. Four is the usual number and the best one.

What is the difference between Kings Corners and Kings in the Corner?

Nothing. Kings Corners, King's Corner, Kings in the Corners and Kings in the Corner are all names for the same game, and the one on the box or the website you learned from is the one you will call it.