American Toad (card game)

American Toad is a patience or card solitaire game played with two standard fifty-two card packs shuffled together, closely related to the solitaire game Canfield but distinguished from it by stricter rules for moving cards. The layout uses eight tableau piles that build downward within the same suit and wrap from ace around to king, eight foundation piles that build upward by suit, a reserve pile of twenty cards available for play, and a stock of remaining cards that is turned over one card at a time. The object of the game is to move every card from the tableau, reserve and stock onto the eight foundations, completing each foundation's full run within its suit. The key difference from Canfield lies in how cards may be transferred between tableau piles: American Toad allows a player to move either an entire tableau stack as a single unit or only the single top card of a stack, but it does not allow moving a partial run of several cards from the middle or top of a stack as Canfield does. This restriction narrows the options available at each decision point and makes the placement of cards onto the tableau the main strategic concern of the game.