Gaps Solitaire
Cards · 6 playsGaps Solitaire
Sort the whole dealt deck into suit order using only the four gaps — the classic Montana patience.
About Gaps Solitaire
The classic gap-shuffling patience, also known as Montana. The whole deck is dealt face-up into four rows, the aces are tossed aside, and the four holes they leave behind are all you have to work with. Tap a glowing gap to pull in the one card that can legally fill it — the next card up, in the same suit, as the card sitting on the gap's left. Only 2s may enter the left-hand edge, and the first 2 you place fixes that row's suit for good, so choose with care. A gap sitting behind a King is dead, and when all four gaps die you may redeal: your finished runs stay locked in place while the rest is gathered up and dealt again, twice at most. Arrange all four rows from 2 up to King to win. Free to play in your browser — no download, no sign-up.
How to Play
The aces are removed, leaving four gaps. Tap a glowing gap to pull in the card one higher, in the same suit, than the card on its left. Only 2s can enter the left edge — the first 2 fixes that row's suit. A gap right after a King is dead. All four dead? Redeal — you get two, and your locked-in runs stay put. Sort every row 2 → K in a single suit to win.
Tips & Strategy
Every move fills one gap and opens another, so the game is really about where you send the gaps. Before tapping, trace the chain: filling this gap frees a spot behind the moved card — what will want to go there, and does that unlock a card you actually need? A move that shifts a gap to sit directly after a King kills it stone dead, so count how many live gaps a line of play leaves you. Three dead gaps and one working one is a losing position long before the stuck screen says so.
Be deliberate with the 2s. The first 2 placed on a row fixes that row's suit forever, and the natural temptation — any 2 into any open left edge — wastes the choice. Look along each row before committing: give a suit the row where its middle cards (7s, 8s, 9s) already sit roughly in order, because those are the cards you will otherwise have to walk halfway across the board. Building all four rows evenly beats racing one row to the King, since long finished runs freeze that part of the board and crowd the leftovers together.
Spend the position fully before redealing. A redeal keeps every locked-in run and reshuffles the rest with the gap placed just after each run, so the more cards you fix before the shuffle, the stronger the next deal — never redeal while a single useful move remains, and use undo freely to test lines before committing to one. You have two redeals: treat the first as a working tool once the gaps are spent, and save the second for converting a nearly-finished board into the win.