Beleaguered Castle

Beleaguered Castle
A Patience game
Origin	US
Named variants	Castle of Indolence, Citadel, Streets and Alleys, Fortress
Type	Open packer
Family	Castle
Deck	Single 52-card
Playing time	15 min
Odds of winning	68% with perfect play

Beleaguered Castle is a patience or solitaire card game played with a deck of 52 playing cards.^[3]^[4] It is sometimes described as "Freecell without cells" because its game play is somewhat akin to the popular solitaire computer game of that name but without extra empty spaces to maneuver. Beleaguered Castle is also called Laying Siege and Sham Battle.^[5]

^ Morehead & Mott-Smith (2001), pp. 40–41.
^ Blake, Charlie; Gent, Ian P. (2019). "The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games". arXiv:1906.12314 [cs.AI].
^ "Beleaguered Castle" (p.426) in The Penguin Book of Card Games by David Parlett, Treasure Press, 1987. ISBN 1-85051-221-3
^ "Beleaguered Castle" (p.9) in Card & Dice Games by N.A.C. Bathe, Robert Frederick Ltd, 2004.ISBN 1-889752-06-1
^ "Beleaguered Castle" (p.222) in The Complete Book of Card Games by Peter Arnold, Hamlyn Publishing, 2010. ISBN 978-0-600-62191-1

[MMS-1] Morehead & Mott-Smith (2001), pp. 40–41.

[2] Blake, Charlie; Gent, Ian P. (2019). "The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games". arXiv:1906.12314 [cs.AI].

[3] "Beleaguered Castle" (p.426) in The Penguin Book of Card Games by David Parlett, Treasure Press, 1987. ISBN 1-85051-221-3

[4] "Beleaguered Castle" (p.9) in Card & Dice Games by N.A.C. Bathe, Robert Frederick Ltd, 2004.ISBN 1-889752-06-1

[5] "Beleaguered Castle" (p.222) in The Complete Book of Card Games by Peter Arnold, Hamlyn Publishing, 2010. ISBN 978-0-600-62191-1

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