the king.
Getting started
You start by dealing all the cards face-up in piles of threes, making sure that each card in every trio is visible (you fan each trio so that you can see a top, middle, and bottom card, hence its alias, Fan). The last four cards go in two piles of two. Your aim is to move cards around the tableau to free up cards that can build up the foundation.
Whenever you expose an ace on the top of a pile, you move it to start a foundation pile, and can start building the suit up from there. The next card to go on the ace is the 2 of that suit, and you keep going up to the king of the suit. If you don’t expose an ace, you have to uncover one by moving the cards around.
You get three tries (or cycles) to move all the cards into suits. At the end of each cycle, you pick up all the cards off the foundations, shuffle them well, and distribute them in trios again.
Making your moves
You can move cards in the tableau onto the card of the same suit one higher in rank, but beware! You can move each card only once, and you can only move one card at a time, which is critical. For example, as soon as the ♦7 goes on the ♦8, you can’t move the ♦8 again unless both cards go onto the foundation in the diamond suit. You can’t move the ♦7 and ♦8 onto the ♦9 because of the one-card-at-a-time rule. You have thus “buried” the ♦8. You can’t move this card until the next redeal, unless the ♦A through the ♦6 go into the foundation, whereupon the ♦7 and ♦8 can also go onto the foundation.
However, this rule doesn’t matter if the ♦8 is at the bottom of a pile; no cards are trapped by the move. The rule does matter if the ♦8 covers something else. Note that kings never move; therefore, you want them at the bottom of piles.
Another example of a potentially bad holding is seeing something along the lines of the ♦Q ♦10. Even if you get to put the ♦10 on the jack, doing so freezes the jack. You can’t move the ♦J again, because you can’t move the ♦10 and the ♦J onto the ♦Q.
Sometimes you get mutually impossible moves, as shown in Figure 2-7. With the base shown, you can’t move the ♦6 until you clear the ♥2, and you can’t move the ♥2 until you free the ♦6 to get at the ♥3. Neither card moves until the ♥A is free, when the ♥2 can go to the foundation.
FIGURE 2-7: Only one series of moves can get you out of this mess.
Certain moves are risk-free at the start of the game:
You can always move any queen onto the king of the same suit (because kings are stuck anyway).
After you move the top two cards of a pile of three and expose the card at the bottom of a pile, you can put the relevant card on top of it without worrying about the consequences. (When a card is at the bottom of a pile, it stands to reason that you can’t trap anything underneath it if you should render it unable to move.)
Whenever a card is stuck (for example, if you put the ♦7 on the ♦8, you make both cards immobile), you can build more cards, such as the ♦6 and ♦5, on top of it. In fact, doing so can only help your chances of getting more cards out.
The initial layout for a sample hand appears in Figure 2-8 (the top card in each trio appears on the right).
FIGURE 2-8: Starting a game of La Belle Lucie.
The figure layout has some encouraging features: All the kings are reasonably placed (they either appear at the bottoms of their piles or at least don’t trap too many cards), and three of the aces are immediately accessible — a very fortunate combination of events. The bad news is that the ♥J and ♥9 are on top of one another, ensuring that the ♥10 (which traps the fourth ace) won’t move this cycle.
Start by making the automatic moves:
1 Take off the ♠A and start a foundation pile for spades.
2 Put the ♦9 on the ♦10 (because the ♥10 can’t move, and the ♦J can’t come free, so you may as well build on the ♦10).
3 Take off the ♣A, the ♣2, and the ♦A.
4 The next card to go for is the ♠2; you can get it easily by putting the ♠J on the ♠Q.But before you do that, can you put the ♠Q on the ♠K? To make that move, you need to put the ♥3 on the ♥4, and to do that, you need to move the ♦4 onto the ♦5. That last move is impossible, because the ♦5 is trapped below the ♥A, so put the ♠J on the ♠Q and take up the ♠2, ♠3, and ♠4.
Figure 2-9 shows an interesting combination of piles.
FIGURE 2-9: Your game begins to take shape after you make the automatic moves.
You want to clear the ♣4 away to get the ♠5 out, and you want to clear the ♠7 away to get the ♣3 out. Should you put the ♣4 on the ♣5, or should you put the ♣5 on the ♣6 and then put the ♣4 on the ♣5? The answer is that you need to keep the ♠8 (below the ♣6) free. Here’s how to progress:
1 Put the ♣4 on the ♣5 and free the ♠5 for the foundation.
2 Now put the ♣6 on the ♣7, the ♠7 on the ♠8, and the ♦6 on the ♦7. (Because the ♦8 is under a king, it’s stuck for the duration, so you can’t move the ♦7.)
3 The ♦3 is now free, which allows you to move it through the ♣8 onto the foundation.
The preceding example shows a relatively simple problem, but the degree of interaction can get considerably more convoluted. This element of trading off one move against another is what makes La Belle Lucie such good fun.
The ♣9
