How to play Yukon
Yukon looks like Klondike with no stock: all 52 cards are on the table from the start. What makes it a different game is how cards move. You can pick up any face-up card, however deep in a column, and everything lying on top of it comes along. You win by moving every card onto the four foundations at the top right, each built in one suit from ace up to king.
The layout
There are seven columns. The first holds a single face-up card. Each of the others has five face-up cards on top of some face-down ones: one face-down card in the second column, two in the third, and so on up to six in the last.
Moving cards
- A card goes onto a column’s top card if it is one lower and the other colour: a red 6 goes on a black 7.
- Any face-up card can be moved, and all the cards on top of it move with it. Those cards do not have to be in any order; only the card you pick up has to fit where it lands.
- Only a king, with whatever is on top of it, can go into an empty column.
- When a face-down card is uncovered it turns over.
- The top card of a column goes to a foundation when it is the next of its suit.
- A card on a foundation stays there, so do not send one up while it is still wanted as a place to put another. Undo will bring it back.
Tap a card to send it, with the cards on top of it, to the place it fits. Or drag it there yourself.
Scoring
| Move | Points |
|---|---|
| Card to a foundation | +10 |
| Turning over a face-down card | +5 |
Undoing a move puts the score back as it was.
Winnable and random deals
With Winnable chosen, every deal has been played through to a win by the site’s solver before you see it, so there is always a way. With Random the cards fall as they fall, and some deals cannot be won however well you play. The line under the table says which kind you have.
The Hint button asks the same solver for a move from wherever you have got to. If it finds a way to win it shows the next move of it. If it cannot, but knew a way a few moves earlier, it tells you how many moves to undo. And when it can prove that a position is lost, it says so.
Tips for winning more often
- Turn the face-down cards over as early as you can. Until they are all showing you cannot plan the ending.
- Look down every column, not only at the top cards. The card that fits may be buried under four others, and it can still move.
- Do not hurry cards to the foundations. A black 5 sent up early may be just the card a red 4 needed to stand on.
- Empty a column only when a king is ready to move into it. An empty column that no king can reach is wasted.
- Try to get each king to the bottom of a column. A king sitting on other cards blocks them until it moves.
- Before a move that buries a low card under a long tail, check that something can dig it out again.