How to Play Klondike Solitaire
Klondike is the game most people mean when they say "solitaire." It is the one that shipped with Windows, the one played with a physical deck on kitchen tables, and the one whose rules almost everyone half-remembers.
This page covers the rules exactly as they are enforced here, and then the part that actually matters: how to decide which move to make when several look fine.
The board
A standard 52-card deck is dealt into four areas.
The tableau is seven columns. The first has one card, the second two, and so on to seven. Only the bottom card of each column starts face-up; everything above it is face-down and hidden.
The stock is the 24 cards left over after the deal. You turn them over to find cards you cannot otherwise reach.
The waste is where stock cards land face-up. Only the top one is playable.
The foundations are four empty spaces, one per suit. Filling all four is how you win.
The rules
Foundations build up, in suit, from the Ace. The Ace of hearts, then the two of hearts, and so on to the King. A foundation never accepts a card of another suit, and never skips a rank.
Tableau columns build down in alternating colours. A red six goes on a black seven. A black six goes on a red seven. Nothing goes on a card of the same colour, and nothing skips a rank.
Only a King may start an empty column. This single rule is responsible for most of the difficulty in Klondike — see the strategy section.
Uncovering flips. When you move the last face-up card off a column, the face-down card beneath it turns over. This is the engine of the whole game: every face-down card you flip is new information and a new option.
Runs move together. A sequence already in correct order — say a black nine, red eight, black seven — moves as one unit onto a red ten.
Cards may come back off a foundation. Sending an Ace up is always safe, but a card you have already banked can sometimes be more useful back in the tableau.
Draw one or draw three
When the stock runs out, the waste is turned over and becomes the stock again, as many times as you like.
In draw one, you turn a single card at a time and eventually see every card in the stock. Most deals are winnable with enough patience.
In draw three, you turn three at a time and only the top of those three is playable. The two beneath it are reachable only by cycling round again — and because the grouping never changes, some cards in the stock may be effectively unreachable for the whole game. This is why draw three is dramatically harder, and it is the classic form.
Strategy that actually changes outcomes
Most Klondike advice amounts to "play the obvious move." Here is what to do when two moves both look obvious.
Prefer the move that flips a face-down card
Face-down cards are the only real unknown. A move that turns one over buys information; a move that only rearranges face-up cards usually buys nothing. When choosing between two legal moves, the one that uncovers something is almost always better.
Take it further: prefer flipping in the longest column. Those columns hold the most hidden cards, and the game is usually decided by whether you can dig them out before running out of options.
Do not send every Ace and Two up automatically
This is the most common mistake, and it feels wrong to resist. Low cards on the foundations are unrecoverable in practice — a red two banked early is a red two you cannot use to hold a black Ace-adjacent build together later.
The rule of thumb: bank a card when both cards of the opposite colour that are one rank lower are already banked, or when you have no use for it in the tableau. Otherwise let it sit.
Empty columns are a resource, not a goal
An empty column is powerful — it holds any King and unlocks whole sequences. But emptying a column to immediately park a King in it can be a trap: you have spent your flexibility and gained a card you may not need.
Before emptying a column, ask which King you intend to move there, and what that King unlocks. If the answer is "some King, eventually," the move is probably premature.
Work the stock early in draw three
Cycle the stock before you commit to tableau moves that cannot be undone. In draw three the grouping of cards is fixed by the deal, so an early pass tells you which stock cards you will realistically be able to reach — and that changes which tableau plays are worth making.
Some deals are unwinnable, and that is normal
In draw three, a meaningful share of deals cannot be won by any sequence of moves. Occasionally a deal offers no legal move at all beyond turning the stock. Recognising a dead position early and dealing again is a skill, not a surrender.
Scoring and what "solved" means
Here, a deal is solved when all fifty-two cards sit on the foundations. There is no timer and no points — the move counter is there so you can compare two attempts at the same deal, which is why Replay deal exists. Replaying the same shuffle after losing is by far the fastest way to learn why you lost.
Common questions
Can I move a partial run? Yes. Any correctly ordered sequence of face-up cards can move as a unit, starting from any card in that sequence.
Can I put a card back from a foundation? Yes. It is occasionally the move that wins a deal.
How many times can I go through the stock? As often as you like.
Is every deal winnable? No. Roughly four in five draw-one deals are winnable with perfect play; draw-three is substantially harsher.
Last updated 2026-08-22