Klondike Solitaire

How to play

1. How is a Klondike Solitaire deal laid out?: Fifty-two cards go into seven columns of one to seven cards. Only the top card of each column is face up; the twenty-one underneath are face down. The remaining twenty-four cards sit in the stock at the top left, next to the waste, with four empty foundations on the right. Start by looking for aces and twos.
2. How do you move cards in Klondike Solitaire?: Tap a column and the movable run at its top is picked up while every legal landing spot lights up; tap a lit spot to complete the move. Columns build down in alternating colours; an empty column only takes a king. Move a card away and the face-down card beneath it turns itself over.
3. How do you win Klondike Solitaire?: Build each suit from ace to king on the four foundations. When nothing moves, tap Deal to turn stock cards onto the waste; when the stock runs out, turn the waste back over and go round again. Undo is unlimited and never costs you anything.

Rules & variants

Klondike Solitaire basics: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Seven columns hold one to seven cards, only the top of each is face up, so exactly twenty-one cards start face down. The other twenty-four wait in the stock. Send all four suits from ace to king to the foundations to win.

Building the columns: cards go down in rank and alternate in colour, so a red seven lands on a black eight and never on a red one. Any run that is already in sequence travels as a whole — and unlike FreeCell, how many empty columns you have does not limit it. All that matters is whether the run itself connects.

Only a king fills an empty column: an empty column accepts a king, or a run headed by one, and nothing else. That is what makes Klondike harder than FreeCell — an empty column is not a free staging area. Emptying a column while you hold no king gains you nothing at all.

Foundations: all four start empty and are not tied to a suit, so whichever ace arrives first claims a pile. After that each pile builds up in the same suit one rank at a time, with no skipping and no mixing. Cards cannot be taken back off a foundation here; if you sent one too early, undo instead.

Stock and waste: tapping the stock turns cards onto the waste — one at a time in turn 1, three at a time in turn 3 where only the top of the three is playable. When the stock empties you can turn the whole waste back over and go round again, as many times as you like. The readout always shows which pass you are on and how many cards are left.

Cards turn themselves over: after every move, a column whose top card is face down flips it immediately. That is a rule rather than a setting, which is why there is no switch for it — and why a face-down card is never something you have to click. The face-down counter running 21 down to 0 is this game's second progress bar.

Strategy: aces and twos can always go home, but hold anything higher back — it is still needed as a landing pad. Dig into the column with the most face-down cards first, because information beats a tidy-looking move. Do not empty a column with no king in hand. In turn 3, run the whole stock once and note which card lands in which group of three; taking one card shifts every later group.

A worked example: send the ace showing in column one to an empty foundation, then move the king from column four into the column you just emptied. Column four's next card flips itself over, the face-down count drops from 21 to 20, and the move counter goes up by exactly one — turning a card over is part of the move, not a move of its own. Try to put a club two onto a spade ace and it is refused: a foundation continues one suit.

How it differs from other solitaires: FreeCell shows all 52 cards and gives you four cells instead of a stock, so it is pure planning with no hidden information. Spider asks you to assemble a full king-to-ace run of one suit inside the columns. Klondike's signature is the twenty-one face-down cards, and turn 1 versus turn 3 is a difficulty dial on the same rules — an in-page option here, which re-deals when you switch.

FAQ