Klondike Solitaire

How to play Klondike

Klondike is the game most people mean when they say solitaire. You win by moving all 52 cards onto the four foundations at the top right, each built in one suit from ace up to king.

The layout

Twenty-eight cards are dealt into seven columns, with one card in the first column and seven in the last. Only the top card of each column is face up. The other 24 cards form the stock at the top left.

Moving cards

• In the columns, build downwards in alternating colours: a red 6 goes on a black 7.
• You can move a whole run of face-up cards at once.
• Only a king, or a run that starts with a king, can go into an empty column.
• When a face-down card is uncovered it turns over.
• Tap the stock to turn cards onto the waste pile. The top waste card can be played.
• When the stock runs out, tap its empty space to turn the waste over and go through it again. You can do this as often as you like.
• A card on a foundation can be brought back down to a column if you need it.

Tap a card to send it to the best place it fits, or drag it there yourself.

Draw 1 or Draw 3

In Draw 1 the stock turns one card at a time, so every card in it can be reached on each pass. In Draw 3 it turns three at a time and only the top one can be played, which makes the game a good deal harder. Changing the setting takes effect on your next deal.

Scoring

Your score never drops below zero, and undoing a move puts the score back as it was.

Undo, hints and finishing

Undo takes back one move at a time. Hint points out a useful move if it can see one. Once every card in the columns is face up, the Finish for me button plays out the rest of a Draw 1 game; in Draw 3 it appears once the stock and waste are empty as well.

Tips for winning more often

• Turn over face-down cards before anything else, starting with the longest columns.
• Play aces and twos to the foundations as soon as you see them.
• Do not empty a column unless you have a king ready to fill it.
• When two moves are possible, choose the one that uncovers a face-down card.
• Do not rush higher cards up to the foundations. You may still need them in the columns to hold cards of the other colour.
• Look through the stock once before committing to a plan, so you know what is coming.

Can every deal be won?

Not when the cards are shuffled at random: roughly one in five random Klondike deals cannot be won however well you play.

That is why the table has a Winnable or Random setting. Winnable deals have each been played through to a win by our solver before they reach you, so there is always a way out. Random deals are a plain shuffle, as you would get from a real pack, and some of them cannot be won. The line under the table shows which kind you are playing.

If a game is stuck, use Undo to try another line, or start a new deal.