Home / Kings in the Corner / How to play

How to play Kings in the Corner

Kings in the Corner (also called Kings Corner or Kings Corners) is a card game for 2 to 4 players. Everyone plays cards from their hand onto shared piles, building down one rank at a time in alternating colors, and kings start new piles in the four corners. The first player to empty their hand wins.

By Emre Özen, updated October 8, 2026. These are the rules our online Kings in the Corner game uses. They follow pagat.com's Kings Corners page for the layout, the moves and the scoring, and Bicycle's rules for the turn: draw first, then play.

One note before you start. Some websites use the name Kings Corner for a one-player solitaire game. This page is about the original game for a group, the one played around a kitchen table.

What you need

One ordinary 52-card deck with the jokers taken out, and 2 to 4 players. Pagat.com says the game is said to be good for four players. Aces are low, so the order from top to bottom is king, queen, jack, 10, 9 and so on down to the ace. Suits don't matter. Only the color does: hearts and diamonds are red, spades and clubs are black.

The deal

Pick a dealer at random. After each hand the deal passes to the left.
The dealer gives everyone seven cards, one at a time.
The rest of the deck goes face down in the middle. That's the stock.
Turn four cards face up from the stock and lay them on the four sides of it: above, below, left and right. That's the cross, and those four cards start the first piles.
The four corners, the diagonal spots between the cross piles, start empty. Only kings can go there.

If a king turns up in the cross, it moves to a corner, and its space in the cross is left empty for the players to fill. Pagat.com says a king dealt to the cross may move to a corner; our game always moves it, since a king may only sit in a corner.

How many cards are left in the stock depends on the number of players:

Players	Cards dealt	Cards in the cross	Cards left in the stock
2	14	4	34
3	21	4	27
4	28	4	20

A turn

The player on the dealer's left goes first. In a two-player game that's whoever didn't deal. Play then goes around to the left.

Draw one card from the stock. If the stock is empty, skip this.
Make as many moves as you like, in any order. The moves are in the table below.
End your turn. You're allowed to stop even if you could still play.

Move	When it's allowed	Example
Play a card on a pile	The card is one rank lower than the pile's top card, and the other color	The 8 of hearts on the 9 of spades
Put a king in a corner	The corner is empty	The king of clubs in the top-left corner
Fill an empty space in the cross	Any card from your hand except a king	The 5 of diamonds in the empty left space
Move a whole pile onto another pile	The bottom card of the pile you move is one rank lower than the other pile's top card, and the other color	A pile from the 8 of hearts down to the 6 of hearts, moved onto the 9 of clubs

Nothing goes on an ace, so a pile that reaches an ace is finished. Piles never move into an empty space, and a pile that starts with a king never moves at all, because no card is higher than a king.

Moving a pile is the move beginners miss. It does two things at once: it opens a space in the cross, and the space takes any card you like (other than a king). In our game, tap a pile to pick it up and the piles it fits light up.

How a hand ends

The hand ends the moment someone plays their last card. That player wins the hand.

Once the stock runs out, play goes on with no drawing. If every player in turn ends a turn without playing anything, nobody can (or will) play again, and the hand ends there. Pagat.com treats this as the point where play stops. Everyone then counts penalty points for the cards they hold (see Scoring below), and in a one-hand game our table gives the win to the fewest points. It's rare: in 14,626 hands between our computer players, it never happened once.

Scoring

For a quick game, the first player out wins and that's it. For a longer game, pagat.com gives this penalty scoring. Everyone who still holds cards adds up:

Card left in your hand	Penalty points
King	10
Any other card	1

Keep a running total over several hands, with the deal passing to the left each time. Agree on a target first: pagat.com suggests 25 or 50. When a hand ends with someone at or over the target, the game is over and the lowest total wins. Our game offers both targets in Settings, along with a single hand.

Words you'll hear

Stock: The face-down pile in the middle that you draw from.
Cross (or foundation piles): The four piles above, below, left and right of the stock. Pagat.com calls them north, east, south and west.
Corners: The four spots between the cross piles. Only kings can start them.
Building down: Playing a card one rank lower than the top card of a pile.
Alternating colors: Red on black, black on red. A red 8 can go on a black 9, never on a red one.
Going out: Playing your last card. It ends the hand.

Common variations

Draw at the end of your turn. Pagat.com's main rule and Wikipedia have you play first and draw one card to end your turn, unless you went out. Pagat.com lists drawing at the start as an alternative. You still draw one card a turn either way.
Other point values. Pagat.com lists several: aces 25, picture cards 10 and number cards at face value, with a target of 100 or 250; or aces 50, tens and pictures 10, and 2 to 9 at 5 each. Wikipedia mentions picture cards at 2, kings at 10 and everything else at 1.
Chips. Everyone puts a chip in the pot, pays another chip each time they draw without playing, and the winner takes the pot plus a chip for each card left in the other hands (10 for a king).
Must play a king. Some players make you put a king down at your first chance, with a penalty for holding one. Pagat.com notes this is hard to check and suggests the 10-point end penalty instead.
Must play when you can. Wikipedia says a player with a card that fits has to play it. Pagat.com lets you hold back.
Building in suit. Some groups build down in the same suit instead of alternating colors.
Four cards each instead of seven, or two jokers added as wild cards. Both are on pagat.com's list of variations.

Want to try it? Play Kings in the Corner against the computer, where the piles you can play on light up as you go, or read our Kings in the Corner strategy tips first.

Sources

John McLeod, "Kings Corners", pagat.com (rules, end of play, penalty scoring and variations).
"Kings Corner", Bicycle Playing Cards, bicyclecards.com (draw at the start of the turn, players, deal).
"Kings in the Corner", Wikipedia (drawing at the end of the turn, must-play rule, point variant).