Crescent Solitaire

Sources and verification

Sources consulted

  • Crescent (solitaire) (new tab) (Wikipedia (in English)): setup (one Ace and one King of each suit set aside as bases, 96 cards in 16 piles of 6), building by suit upward or downward with wrapping from King to Ace, an empty pile never refilled, moving a card from one foundation to another except the bases, three redeals, variants, other name "La Demi-Lune"
  • Patience (jeu) (new tab) (Wikipédia (in French)): French solitaire vocabulary (tableau, foundations, réussite or patience)

The English page itself cites these books, which we have not consulted:

  • Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith, The Complete Book of Solitaire & Patience Games
  • Comtesse de Blanccoeur, Le Livre illustré des patiences ("La Demi-Lune")
  • David Parlett, The Penguin Book of Patience

Links accessed on October 30, 2026. Crescent has no official rulebook: the rules described on this site are first and foremost those of the Crescent Solitaire app, read from its code; the traditional rule is cited separately.

How the examples are verified

Before each publication, a program checks the 3 example deals and every number on the site:

  • the deal is recomputed from its game code, with the same shuffle as the app, and compared with the one the app's code produces;
  • 104 cards, each in two copies, 8 foundation bases, 16 piles of 6 cards;
  • every move of the won games is replayed and must be allowed by the app's rules; every game must end won;
  • the number of moves, the redeals and the cards placed on the foundations are recomputed and compared with those of the app;
  • the refused moves shown on the site are refused by the app, for the same reason;
  • the rules cited (empty pile, same suit, wrapping from King to Ace, foundations, redeal) are checked again against the app's code.

The strategy tips are presented as tips, separate from the rules. The won games were found by a program that tries moves and backtracks: they prove that these deals can be won, but say nothing about the difficulty of other deals. A mistake? Write to us through the contact page.