Kings in the Corners Strategy: How to Go Out First

Kings in the Corners has a good share of luck. You cannot choose the card you draw, and sometimes the piles simply do not match your hand. But watch a few hands and you will see that the same people win more often than chance allows. They are not doing anything clever. They just look at the whole table before they touch a card, and they play their cards in the right order. This guide shows you how. If you are new to the game, start with the rules.

1. Get Your Kings Down

A King left in your hand at the end costs 10 points. Every other card costs 1. With a target of 25, two Kings caught in your hand over a game are very nearly enough to lose it on their own.

The good news is that a King is the easiest card in the deck to play. There are four Kings and four corners, so there is always a corner waiting. Play a King the moment you draw it. There is nothing to gain by holding one back: a King in a corner does not take a spot away from anyone, and it gives you a brand new pile to build on.

2. Look for Piles to Move Before You Play a Card

New players look at their hand first. Experienced players look at the table first. At the start of every turn, check each side pile and ask: does the bottom card of this pile fit on top of any other pile?

Moving a pile costs you nothing, and it leaves an empty side spot. An empty spot takes any card you like. So every pile you can move is one more card out of your hand, and it is a card of your own choosing. It is the only play in the game that lets you shed a card that fits nowhere.

Do not forget side piles that begin with a King. A King turned up in the opening layout can be moved to a corner, pile and all, which opens its side spot.

3. Choose Carefully What Goes in an Empty Spot

An empty spot is valuable, so do not waste it on a card that could have gone somewhere else. Before you fill a spot, go through three questions.

1. Does one of my cards start a run from my own hand? If you hold the 9 of spades, the 8 of hearts and the 7 of clubs, put the 9 in the empty spot. The 8 and the 7 follow it straight away, and three cards are gone for the price of one spot.
2. Which card fits nowhere else? A card that can go on an existing pile should go there. Save the empty spot for a card that is stuck.
3. Which stuck card is highest? All else being equal, get rid of the high card. The next section explains why.

4. High Cards Are Harder to Play Than Low Cards

Piles only ever build downward. A pile that shows a 9 today will show an 8, then a 7, then a 6. That means a low card in your hand gets more chances as the hand goes on: sooner or later a pile comes down to meet it.

A high card has the opposite problem. A Queen can only go on a King, and a Jack only on a Queen. Once those cards are covered, the chance is gone for the rest of the hand, unless an empty spot turns up. So when you have a free choice, play Queens, Jacks and 10s first and keep the 3s and 4s for later. They will find a home.

5. Play Your Cards in the Right Order

You may make your plays in any order, and the order matters more than people expect. Two habits prevent most mistakes.

• Play the higher card of a pair first. If you hold a red 7 and a black 6, and there is a black 8 on the table, the 7 must go down before the 6 can follow. Easy to see with two cards; easy to miss when the 7 has two possible homes and only one of them leaves room for the 6.
• Do not block your own pile moves. Suppose a side pile starts with a black 9, and another pile has a red 10 on top. You also hold a black 9. If you play your 9 onto the 10, the pile can no longer move there, and you have lost an empty spot. Move the pile first, then put your own 9 in the spot it left behind. Both 9s are placed and you have used the same number of plays.

A good routine for every turn is: Kings, then pile moves, then cards that fit on piles (highest first), then fill the empty spots, and then look once more. A play you made thirty seconds ago has often opened another.

6. Do Not End Your Turn Too Soon

The most common mistake in this game has nothing to do with strategy. It is tapping End My Turn while a play is still sitting there. Before you finish, run your eye over every card in your hand one more time and compare it with every pile top. In the online game, cards that fit somewhere are raised slightly in your hand, and the Hint button will tell you if you have missed one.

7. Leave as Little as Possible for the Next Player

Everything you leave on the table is available to the player after you. You cannot do much about pile tops, but you can avoid leaving gifts.

• Never leave an empty side spot if you have a card to put in it. The next player would fill it with their worst card and thank you.
• An Ace closes a pile. Nothing goes on an Ace. Playing one takes that pile out of the game for everybody, which is usually good for the player with the fewest cards. If that is you, play your Aces gladly.
• Count hands. The game shows how many cards each player holds. When an opponent is down to one or two cards, stop thinking about elegant plays and simply get rid of as many cards as you can, Kings first.

8. Play the Score, Not Just the Hand

Remember that the lowest total wins, not the player who goes out most often. Going out earns you a zero, which is lovely, but finishing a hand with one card left costs only a single point. Late in a game, look at the totals. If you are comfortably ahead, your only real danger is being caught with a King, so play Kings the instant they arrive. If you are behind, you need the leader to be caught with a full hand, which means going out quickly matters more than anything else.

Learn from the Computer

In our online game, every computer play has a Why? button. Tap it for a few turns and you will see these same ideas at work: Kings to the corners, piles moved to open a spot, high cards into empty spots. On the Hard level the computer also works out the best order for its whole turn before it plays a card, which is the habit worth copying. If you like this kind of thinking ahead, you might also enjoy Gin Rummy or a quiet game of Klondike Solitaire.