These rules describe Canfield as implemented in the app: the strict classic game, known as Demon in Britain where it was first recorded, with a thirteen-card reserve, foundations that start at a dealt base rank and wrap, whole-pile tableau moves only, and a draw-three stock with unlimited redeals. The classic sources agree on the essentials. Where modern software commonly relaxes them, the choices made here (and why) are called out below.
Move all 52 cards onto the four foundations, building each up by suit from the base rank (the rank dealt to the first foundation) and turning the corner from King to Ace along the way.
- Reserve: A packet of thirteen cards, all face down except the exposed top card, which is always playable. British sources call it the demon. It must fill any empty tableau pile at once.
- Base card: The card dealt face up to the first foundation — its rank is where all four foundations start.
- Tableau: Four piles built down in alternating colors, wrapping from Ace to King. A pile moves onto another only in its entirety.
- Foundations: Four suit piles built up from the base rank, wrapping from King to Ace. Cards placed here never return to play.
- Stock: The face-down draw pile (34 cards after the deal). Three cards turn at a time, with unlimited redeals.
- Waste: Face-up cards turned from the stock — only the top card is playable.
- Use one standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
- Reserve: Deal 13 cards into one packet, the top card face up.
- Base card: Deal the next card face up onto the first foundation.
- Tableau: Deal one card face up onto each of the four piles.
- Stock: The remaining 34 cards, face down. The waste starts empty.
- Build piles down in alternating colors, turning the corner from Ace to King (the K♠ plays onto the A♥ or A♦).
- A pile moves onto another pile only in its entirety — a partial sequence never moves, however well packed. The exposed top card may always play to a foundation.
- An empty pile fills at once from the reserve's top card — this is compulsory, and the app performs it automatically. Once the reserve is empty, fill a space with the top waste card whenever you choose. A space never fills from another tableau pile.
- Each foundation starts with a card of the base rank and builds up in its suit, turning the corner from King to Ace, until it holds all thirteen cards.
- A card placed on a foundation is locked — it never returns to the tableau.
- The exposed top card is always available, to a foundation or onto a tableau pile. When it leaves, the next reserve card turns face up.
- Tap the stock to turn three cards face up onto the waste, order preserved. If fewer than three remain, they turn together.
- Only the top waste card is playable, to the tableau or a foundation.
- When the stock is spent, tap again to turn the waste over, unshuffled, as the new stock. Redeals are unlimited.
- Waste to tableau: +5.
- Waste to foundation: +10.
- Reserve to tableau: +5.
- Reserve to foundation: +10.
- Tableau to foundation: +10.
- Winning adds a time bonus that starts at 900 and drops one point per second.
- The score never goes below zero.
You win by moving all 52 cards to the foundations. The game is lost when no play exists from the reserve, tableau, or waste, and a full unchanged pass through the stock surfaces nothing playable. Canfield's reputation as a grind is earned. The casino legend has players buying the deck for $50 and winning $5 per card banked, against an average of five or six. The deals themselves are more generous than the legend: solver studies find roughly two thirds winnable under these strict rules, with expert play converting about a third. Draining the reserve is the heart of the game.
The classic sources are unusually consistent for a patience game. The choices here follow them against the relaxations common in software:
- Whole-pile movement only. The classic rule in every printed source (Coops' 100 Games of Solitaire: "sequences on tableau may be moved bodily, but not parts of sequences", and Morehead & Mott-Smith agree). Much modern software permits partial-sequence moves, a measurable easing (solver studies put it at roughly four points of winnability). The app keeps the by-the-book rule.
- Wrapping in both directions. Foundations turn King-to-Ace and tableau builds turn Ace-to-King. Both are definitional: with a random base rank, the cards just below it would otherwise be nearly unplayable.
- Compulsory reserve fill. A space takes the reserve's top card at once, not at the player's option. Choice enters only after the reserve is out, when the top waste card may fill a space (and nothing else may — not even another tableau pile).
- Locked foundations. A banked card never returns to play. No classic source permits "worrying back", though some apps offer it as a house option.
- Draw three with unlimited redeals. This is universal across the classic sources. Deal-one variants exist (Rainbow) but are a different, far easier game. The in-app Restart command returns the same deal to its starting layout — a fresh attempt, not a stock recycle, which is unlimited and free.