Solitaire

How do you play Klondike Solitaire?

Seven columns of cards are dealt from left to right. The first column has one card, the second two, and so on up to seven. Only the top card of each column is face up. The 24 cards left over form the stock.

Your goal is to move every card to the four foundation piles at the top right. Each foundation starts with an Ace and grows one card at a time in the same suit: Ace, 2, 3, up to the King. When all four foundations hold a King, you have won.

• On the columns, build downward in alternating colours. A red 6 can go on a black 7, a black Queen on a red King.
• You can move a whole face-up run of cards at once, as long as it is in order and alternates colour.
• When you move the last face-up card from a column, the card beneath turns over.
• Only a King, or a run that starts with a King, can be placed in an empty column.
• Tap the stock to turn over cards onto the waste. The top waste card can be played on a column or a foundation.
• When the stock is empty, tap it to turn the waste back over and go through it again, if the rules allow.

Draw 1 or Draw 3: which should you choose?

Draw 1 turns over one card at a time. Every card in the stock is reachable on every pass, so it is the friendlier version and a good place to start, for kids and for anyone who wants a relaxed game.

Draw 3 turns over three cards and you can only play the top one. The cards underneath become available only after you use the top one, so the order of the stock matters a lot. It is harder, and it is the version most people mean when they talk about the classic Windows game. Many deals that are easy in Draw 1 cannot be won in Draw 3.

You can switch between the two every time you start a new game. Your best times are kept separately for each, so you can chase a record in both.

Standard scoring and Vegas scoring

Standard scoring rewards progress. You earn 10 points for each card moved to a foundation, 5 for a card moved from the waste to a column, and 5 for turning a column card face up. Taking a card back down from a foundation costs 15. Going through the waste again costs 100 points in Draw 1, and 20 points after the third pass in Draw 3. Your score never drops below zero. When you win, a time bonus of 700,000 divided by your seconds is added if you took longer than 30 seconds.

Vegas scoring is a bet. You pay 52 dollars up front, one dollar a card, and win 5 dollars for every card you send to a foundation. Clear the whole deck and you finish 208 dollars up. In Draw 1 you may go through the stock only once, and in Draw 3 you get three passes. It makes every move count, because you cannot simply keep cycling the stock.

Winnable deals and random deals: are all Solitaire games winnable?

No. With a shuffled deck, some deals simply cannot be won however well you play. Studies of Klondike suggest that, with all the cards known in advance, a large majority of deals can be won in Draw 1, but a real player who cannot see the face-down cards wins fewer, and some deals are dead from the start.

That is why this game offers two kinds of deal. A winnable deal is one that our solver has proven can be won: it played the whole deal through with every card visible and found a way to finish. Winning it still takes your skill, because you cannot see the hidden cards, but you know a solution exists. A random deal is any shuffle, exactly like dealing a physical deck, and the badge at the top of the screen says so.

The daily deal is always a winnable one, and it is the same for everyone who plays that day with the same options.

Controls: tap, drag, double-tap and keyboard

Tap or click a card and it jumps to the best place it can go, usually a foundation. If there are two or more places, the card is selected and the possible places light up: tap one to finish the move. Double-tap sends a card to its foundation. You can also drag any card or run to where you want it, with a mouse or a finger.

With a keyboard, use the arrow keys to move a cursor over the table, Enter or Space to pick a card up and drop it, and Escape to cancel. Undo steps back one move together with any automatic moves that followed it. Hint highlights a sensible move, and Auto-finish appears when every card is face up and the game is certain to be won.

Solitaire strategy: how to win more games

A few habits make a big difference, and the Learn article on Klondike strategy goes deeper.

• Free the face-down cards first. A move that turns a card over is almost always better than a move that does not.
• Play Aces and 2s to the foundations at once, but be careful with higher cards: a 5 or 6 on the column may be needed to hold a card of the opposite colour.
• Do not empty a column unless you have a King ready for it. An empty column with no King is wasted space.
• Before you draw from the stock, check every move on the table. Drawing reveals information, and it is better to make progress first.
• In Draw 3, remember the order of the cards you have passed. Play a card so that the one under it becomes the top of the waste on your next pass.
• When two moves look equal, choose the one that uncovers the longer pile of hidden cards.

Hints, undo and auto-move

Undo is unlimited and free. It steps back one move, together with any cards that were sent home automatically afterwards. Hint uses the same rules a careful player would: it prefers foundation moves, moves that turn a hidden card face up, and waste cards that fit. If it only suggests drawing from the stock, you are probably out of useful moves for the moment.

Auto-move sends cards to the foundations when it cannot hurt you, for example an Ace, a 2, or a card whose opposite-colour partners are already home. You can switch it off in the setup screen if you prefer to do everything yourself. Auto-finish plays the last cards home once the whole table is face up.

The daily deal and your statistics

Press Play today's deal to get the deal that everyone shares for the day. The draw option you choose decides which deal you get, one for Draw 1 and one for Draw 3 with the same scoring. A new one appears after midnight on your device.

Your games played, wins, win rate, streaks and best times are saved in this browser for each mode, and your game is saved while you play, so you can close the tab and continue later. If you sign in, wins also count toward the leaderboards and badges.

Solitaire for seniors, kids and everyone in between

The cards are large and clear and the table works at any size, from a phone to a big monitor. Draw 1 with a winnable deal is a gentle way to play, and there is no timer pressure: the clock never stops you, and you can pause whenever you like. Kids who can count to 13 and tell red from black can play, and the hint button turns it into a teaching tool.

Solitaire is also a good fit for short breaks. A game of Draw 1 takes around ten minutes, and your game is saved if you are interrupted.

A short history of patience

Card games for one player are called patience in Britain and solitaire in the United States. Patience games were already popular in Europe in the late 1700s. Klondike is thought to have spread during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, which is where the name comes from. It became the most played solitaire game in the world after Microsoft included it with Windows 3.0 in 1990, partly to teach people how to use a mouse by dragging cards.