How to Play Solitaire
Klondike is the Solitaire game with 7 columns, a stock pile and 4 foundations. The aim is to collect each suit from Ace to King while uncovering the cards in the columns. This guide explains the layout, which cards can move and what to check when you have several legal choices.
The name comes from the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896 to 1899 in Canada's Yukon. Many people simply call it Solitaire, because it is the version Microsoft shipped with Windows, starting with Windows 3.0 in 1990.
Start a game in another tab and follow along. Find the stock and the foundations first, then try the alternating-color move described below. Undo takes back any move you are not sure about.
Getting all 52 cards to the foundations
Move all 52 cards to the 4 foundations, building each pile in suit from Ace to King. Clearing the columns is not enough on its own. The cards left in the stock and waste have to reach the foundations too.
The table
A Klondike table has 4 parts, and the rules make more sense once you can name them.
- The stock is the face down pile in the top left. It holds the cards you have not dealt into play yet.
- The waste sits next to the stock. When you draw from the stock, the card lands here face up, ready to be played.
- The foundations are the 4 empty spaces across the top. Each pile takes a single suit: Ace, 2, 3 and so on up to King.
- The tableau is the 7 columns. This is where most of the game happens.
How the cards are dealt
The cards are dealt across the 7 columns from left to right, so the first column has 1 card, the second has 2, on up to 7 in the last. Only the last card dealt to each column lands face up. The other 24 cards become the stock. Online the deal happens the moment the page loads, but it helps to know why the right side of the board looks so much taller than the left.
The moves
Klondike has only a handful of moves. Learn these and you know the game.
Build the columns down in alternating colors
Place a card on a card of the opposite color that is exactly one rank higher: a red 6 on a black 7, for example, followed by a black 5 on that red 6. A face-up run built this way can move as one piece. Its highest card has to fit the new spot, and the cards stacked on it come along.
Flip a face down card when you uncover it
When you move the last face up card off a pile and reveal a face down card, that card turns over and joins the game. Turning these cards over is most of what winning Klondike is about.
Send Aces and low cards to the foundations
Start each foundation with an Ace. Add the 2 of that suit, then the 3 and continue upward to King without skipping a rank. Aces and 2s can go up as soon as they are exposed. Before moving a higher card, check whether you still need it on the tableau as a place to put a lower card.
Only a King fills an empty column
When you clear a column it does not stay open for any card. A King, or a run of cards led by a King, is the only thing you can move into the gap. This is one of the rules that catches new players, and it is also the reason emptying a column is not always the good news it looks like.
Draw from the stock when the board stalls
Sooner or later the cards on the table stop giving you moves. Drawing from the stock turns up a new card on the waste pile, and the top card of the waste is always available to play onto the tableau or a foundation. When the stock runs out you can turn the waste over and go through it again. In Standard scoring there is no limit on how many times.
The moves that win games
Chase the hidden cards first
When you have a choice of moves, look for a face-down card you can uncover. It might be the card you are missing, or an Ace. Foundation moves can help too, especially when they expose a tableau card, but do not remove a higher card that you are about to use as a landing place.
Do not open a column with nowhere to fill it
Before clearing a column, look for a King that can use it. Moving a King-led run there may expose a covered card in its old column. A space without an available King can still help later, but it cannot hold a Queen or another lower card while you wait.
Think before you send a middle card up
Suppose a red 5 is waiting on the waste and an exposed black 6 could receive it. Sending that 6 to its foundation removes the landing place. Keep it on the tableau if playing the 5 is part of your plan; move it up once the lower cards no longer depend on it.
That is the short version of winning play. If you want to take it further, the guide to winning at Solitaire goes deeper into reading the board, working the stock and knowing when a deal is already lost.
Draw 1 and Draw 3
Most versions let you choose how many cards you turn over from the stock at a time. Draw 1 flips a single card, so every stock card comes up on every pass. It is the gentler setting and the better place to learn. Draw 3 flips 3 at once and only the top of the 3 is playable, so the order of the stock starts to matter and some cards take real planning to reach. The rules are otherwise identical. If you are new, start on Draw 1 and move to Draw 3 when you want a harder game. The separate 3 Card Solitaire strategy guide explains packet order, deliberate skips and later stock passes.
How scoring works
The score is a side game. You win by getting all 52 cards home either way. There are 3 modes to choose from in the settings.
- Standard gives 10 points for each card that reaches a foundation, 5 for playing a waste card to the tableau and 5 for turning over a face down card. Taking a card back down from a foundation costs 15. Turning the waste over for another pass costs 100 points in Turn 1. In Turn 3 the first two turns of the waste are free and each one after that costs 20. The score never drops below 0.
- Vegas is the old casino version. You start at -52 and earn 5 for each card that reaches a foundation, so you need 11 cards home just to get back above zero. You get one pass through the stock in Turn 1 and three in Turn 3.
- Cumulative Vegas uses the same points but carries your running total from one deal to the next, so a good deal can pay for a bad one.
Common questions
Is every game of solitaire winnable?
No. Some random shuffles have no solution at all. Every Winnable deal on the site has a known solution, so if one of those stalls, an earlier choice usually went wrong. How we check that a deal can be won.
Can I take a move back?
Yes. Undo takes back your last move, and you can keep going back as far as you like. A win that used Undo, a hint or Show next move counts as an Assisted win. It is still saved to your account, but only Unassisted wins go on the leaderboard. If you let Play it out finish the deal for you, the game counts as practice rather than a win.
How long does a game take?
A few minutes once you know the rules. A careful Draw 3 game can run longer, and a deal that is going badly can be given up and reshuffled at any time.
What if I cannot read the cards clearly?
Make them bigger. The large card version is the same game with much larger, higher contrast cards.
For stock timing, try the Turn 3 packet exercise. For the odds of winning each version, see what research says about Draw 1 and Draw 3.