How to Play the Carpet Card Game

We have an easy to play solitaire game for you today: the Carpet Card game. This is one of the easier solo card games I have found but it’s fun to see if it will work out for you. But isn’t that the way with all of these types of gams—Golf Solitaire, Flower Garden and Mini Golf card game.

In this post we’ll cover how to play, the rules and the variations of Carpet. It’s get into it.

This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

What you Need for the Carpet Card Game

You will need one deck of cards with the jokers removed and the aces separated. We love fun playing cards around here, they just make the games more fun. If you need some new cards, check out the selection here; Canadians here. We think the Crazy Chicken Lady ones are fun looking!

Setting Up Carpet

First, place the aces at the top in a row. These are the start of the piles. Next, shuffle the rest of the cards and then place them face up in four rows of five. These cards are called the carpet. You’re now ready to play the Carpet card game.

Playing the Carpet Card Game

First, look in the carpet to see if there are any twos. If there are, you may place them on their respective ace.  For example, if the two of hearts is there, you can place it on the ace of hearts. Next, look for any threes that you can place on top of any two that you were able to place on the aces. You can only move a three to its pile if the two is already there. Continue doing this until you have played all the cards that you can.

Now, you can fill in the spots on the carpet one at a time from your stock pile (the rest of the cards in the deck that weren’t dealt into the carpet). Once all the spots in the carpet are filled, you again look for any cards that can be placed on the aces. And again you fill in any spots in the carpet from the stock pile.

When all the carpet is full of cards that can’t be placed, you turn over the top card of the stock pile. If you can place it on any of the piles, you may do so. Otherwise, you place the card in a discard pile.

The Stock Pile

Now, you turn over the next card from the stock pile and place it on top of the discard pile. If you can play it on one of the piles, do so. Otherwise, you will flip over the next card from the stock pile.

At any point, if the card you flipped over can be played onto a pile, you place it there. Also, if that new card creates an opportunity to play a card from the carpet, you place it on the pile. At this point you would fill the hole on the carpet from the next card on the stock pile. For example, if you flip over the 4 of clubs and the 5 of clubs is on the carpet, you can place both on the club pile (if the 3 was already there) and now you fill the spot of the 5 with a new card from the stock pile.

If the top card of the discard pile becomes playable, you may take it and play it. If that then makes the next card playable, you may play that one too. This is only for the top card on the discard pile. For example, say the 8 of spades is on top of the discard pile. You flip over the 5 of hearts that can be played. After playing the 5, you see that the 6 of hearts is in the carpet. You play it and then fill the empty spot on the carpet with the 7 of spades that can be played. You may play the 7 of spades and then take the 8 of spades off the discard pile to play.

Once you have flipped over the last card on the stock pile, you can play any card that is playable and then the game is over.

Winning Carpet Card Game

To win the game, you must place all the cards from each suit in its pile.

Carpet Variations

The first variation I have found for the Carpet card game is that players can decide what card to fill the carpet in with. For example, if there are three empty spots in the carpet and you fill over a king, you could decide to fill the spot with the king or put it in the discard pile. You can also add to the carpet with the top card of the discard pile. You can also leave the carpet with empty spots as long as you’d like. This adds an element of strategy to the game. But I also found that it made the game easier to win.

The next Carpet variation I found is to make the game a little more challenging. Instead of flipping over one card at a time, you flip over two cards and you can only see the second card if you can play the top card on the discard pile. You could also try flipping over three cards at a time.

Next, to make it more challenging, you can change the carpet from 4 rows of 5 to 4 rows of 4 or even 3 rows of 4.

Keeping score is my own variation of this game. After you have finished the game (and didn’t win) you count how many cards are in the discard pile and carpet and keep that as your score. For your next game, see if you can get a lower score.

Lay Down the Fun

The carpet solitaire game is a kid favorite that challenges them and keeps them engaged.

Get the printable rules for Carpet here. And for more fun solitaire games check out the Golf solitaire game, the Flower Garden game and the Mini Golf card game too. Be sure to visit the Family Game Shelf shop for tons of fun with original and seasonal games like our Whacky Putt mini golf dice game!