Gaps Solitaire Rules (Montana): How to Play and Win

Gaps Solitaire, also known as Montana, is unlike any other solitaire variant. Instead of a tableau of overlapping cards, you work with a flat grid of 52 cards in four rows of 13. Remove the four Aces at the start, and the four empty spaces they leave behind become the game. Your job is to slide cards into those gaps until each row runs in sequence from 2 to King, all in the same suit. You have two redeals to get it done.

The two names explained

The game has been called Gaps and Montana interchangeably in card game books for decades. Gaps describes what you are doing: filling empty spaces in a grid. Montana is the older American name, found in Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith's encyclopedic card game references from the 1940s and 1950s. Neither name is more correct than the other. If you search for the rules of either game, you will find the same set of mechanics.

Some variations of Montana allow four redeals rather than two. The standard version described here, which is what most digital implementations use, allows two redeals.

Setup

The setup for Gaps Solitaire is unlike any other card game:

• Shuffle a standard 52-card deck and deal all 52 cards face-up into a 4×13 grid (four rows of 13 cards each)
• Remove all four Aces from wherever they landed in the grid
• This leaves four empty spaces (the gaps) scattered across the grid

The goal is to rearrange the remaining 48 cards (2 through King of each suit) so that each of the four rows reads, from left to right, in continuous same-suit order: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King. Which suit goes in which row does not matter.

Rules: moving cards into gaps

Each move consists of sliding one card into one gap. The rules for what can go in a gap depend entirely on the card immediately to the left of the gap:

• If the gap is at the far left of a row (nothing to its left), only a 2 of any suit can fill it
• If the card to the left of the gap is a 2 through Jack, the only legal card to fill the gap is the next card of the same suit (3 through Queen respectively)
• If the card to the left of the gap is a King, the gap is permanently blocked for this round. Nothing can be placed to the right of a King.

When you move a card into a gap, its original position becomes a new gap. The total number of gaps never changes (always four) until you redeal.

How redeals work

When no more legal moves are available (every gap is either at the right end of a correctly completed sequence or immediately to the right of a King), you may redeal.

On a redeal, all cards that are not already in a correctly completed sequence from the left end of their row are gathered up and reshuffled. These cards are then re-dealt randomly into the positions not occupied by correctly placed cards, and new gaps appear at the left end of each row.

Correctly placed cards are those that form an unbroken same-suit sequence starting from the leftmost position of a row. For example, if a row starts with 2 of Hearts, 3 of Hearts, 4 of Hearts and then has a different card, only the first three cards are locked in place. The rest of that row is reshuffled.

You may redeal twice. After the second redeal, if you still cannot win, the game is over.

Strategy: think before reshuffling

The most important strategic principle in Gaps is to commit to your best rows before you run out of moves. Cards locked in from the left end of a row survive the redeal. A row that extends three cards deep locks those three cards and removes them from the reshuffled pool, giving you a head start in the next round.

1. 1

   Extend started rows first

   A row that begins 2, 3, 4 of Clubs is one correctly placed card away from protecting those three. A gap that extends a partially started row is usually more valuable than a gap that starts a new row from scratch.
2. 2

   Guard your 2s carefully

   Only a 2 can go in a far-left gap, and you have only four 2s in the deck. If all four rows already have cards starting from the left, a gap at the far left has no useful card to fill it. Conversely, if three rows are started and one gap opens at the far left, you have an opportunity to start the fourth row.
3. 3

   Cut your losses on King-blocked gaps

   When a King lands to the left of a gap, that gap is dead for the current round. Do not waste moves trying to work around a King-blocked gap. Focus your remaining moves on other gaps and rows that still have potential.
4. 4

   Think ahead before each move

   Moving a card into a gap opens a new gap where that card was. Ask whether the new gap is useful before you commit. A move that opens a gap beside a King is often worse than leaving the original gap in place.

Frequently asked questions

Why is this game called both Gaps and Montana?

The game has two widely used names. Gaps describes the core mechanic: the empty spaces left after removing the Aces. Montana is the American name popularized by card game compendiums in the mid-20th century, possibly referring to the wide open spaces of the Montana landscape. Both names refer to the same game with the same rules.

How many redeals do you get?

You get two redeals in the standard version of the game, for a total of three rounds (initial deal plus two redeals). Each redeal reshuffles the cards not already correctly placed and re-deals them into the non-gap positions, creating four new gaps at the left end of each row.

What makes Gaps so hard to win?

The main difficulty is that once a King lands in the position just to the right of a correctly placed card, that gap becomes permanently blocked for the current round. Kings cannot be moved into gaps (only cards 2 through Queen are movable). A deal with several Kings blocking key gaps early is extremely difficult to recover from even with good play.

Can I move any card I want into a gap?

No. The card you place in a gap must be exactly one rank higher than the card immediately to the left of the gap, and the same suit. If the gap is at the far left of a row (no card to its left), only a 2 can fill it. If a King is to the left of a gap, nothing can fill it.