Baroness (card game)

"Thirteens" redirects here. For the album by Leona Naess, see Thirteens (album). For other uses, see 13 (disambiguation).

Baroness

A Patience game
Screenshot of Baroness
Alternative names	Five Piles, Thirteens
Family	Adding and pairing
Deck	Single 52-card
Related games
Eight Cards, Good Thirteen
See also Glossary of patience terms

Baroness is a solitaire card game that is played with a deck of 52 playing cards. Also known as Five Piles and Thirteens, it is a game that has an arrangement that is almost like that of Aces Up but with the game play of Pyramid.

Rules

Five cards are dealt in a row; they will form the bases of the five piles, the top cards of which are available for play.

In order to win, one has to remove Kings and pairs of cards that total 13. In this game, spot cards are taken at face value, Jacks value at 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13. So the following combinations of cards are discarded:

• Queen and Ace
• Jack and 2
• 10 and 3
• 9 and 4
• 8 and 5
• 7 and 6
• Kings on their own.

When gaps occur, they are filled by the top cards of the other piles; but when there are not enough cards to do this (less than five), cards from the stock are used.

When gaps are filled and no kings and/or pairs of cards totalling 13 are present, five new cards are dealt from the stock, one onto each pile. Game play then continues, with the top cards of each pile, as mentioned above, are available. This cycle of discarding and dealing of new cards goes on until the stock has been used up.

The game is won when all cards have been discarded.