How to play Klondike solitaire
Klondike is the solitaire most people mean when they say solitaire: seven columns, a stock to draw from, and four foundations to build from ace to king.
Setting up
One 52-card deck. Seven columns are dealt left to right: the first has one card, the second two, up to seven in the last. The top card of each column is face up and the rest face down. The other 24 cards are the stock, face down, with an empty waste pile beside it. Above the columns are four empty foundations.
How to play
Build the columns down in alternating colours: a red 6 can go on a black 7, a black 6 on a red 7. You can move a single face-up card or a whole run of face-up cards that is already in order. When a face-down card is uncovered it turns face up.
An empty column can only take a king, or a run that starts with a king.
Aces go to the foundations as soon as they are free, and each foundation is built up in one suit: ace, 2, 3 and so on to king. A card can also come back down from a foundation to a column if it fits there.
Tap the stock to turn cards onto the waste. The top card of the waste can be played to a column or a foundation. When the stock runs out, tap its empty space to turn the waste back over and go through again.
Draw 1 or draw 3
In draw 1 you turn one card at a time and every card in the stock is reachable on every pass. In draw 3 you turn three at a time and can only play the top one of the three, which makes the game noticeably harder because the cards underneath stay buried until the order shifts.
Scoring
Standard: 10 points for each card moved to a foundation, 5 for playing a card from the waste to a column, 5 for turning a column card face up, minus 15 for taking a card back off a foundation, and minus 100 (draw 1) or minus 20 (draw 3) each time the waste is turned back over. The score never goes below zero.
Vegas: you start at -52 (as if you paid $52 for the deck) and win $5 for every card on a foundation, so 52 cards pay $260. Draw 1 gets one pass through the stock and draw 3 gets three.
None: no score, just the clock and the move count.
Winning
You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. Once the stock is empty and every card is face up, the Finish button plays the rest for you.
Tips
Turning over face-down cards matters more than almost anything else, so prefer moves from the columns with the most hidden cards. Don't rush to empty a column unless you have a king to put in it. Keep an eye on colours: if both red 8s are buried, think twice before moving the black 9s off their spots.
Options on this site
- Draw: Draw 1 (default), Draw 3
- Scoring: Standard (default), Vegas, None
Questions
Is every Klondike deal winnable?
No. Most shuffles can be won with perfect knowledge, but some can't. With "Only deal games that can be won" switched on (the default), the site only deals shuffles a solver has already won with every card visible.
Can I undo moves?
Yes, as many as you like, and redo them too. Undo is the curved arrow, or Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac). Restart takes you back to the start of the same deal.