Yukon Solitaire

How to play

1. How is a Yukon Solitaire game dealt?: All 52 cards are dealt into seven columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards. The first column is a single face-up card; the other six have 1 to 6 face-down cards under five face-up cards each. The four empty slots at the top are the foundations, and the three buttons to their left are undo, hint and menu. There is no stock — everything is already on the table.
2. How do you move cards in Yukon?: Tap any face-up card: it and every card on top of it lift as one stack, and the columns that can take it light up. Tap a glowing column to move there. The stack does not have to be in order — only the card you tapped matters: the column's top card must be the opposite colour and one rank higher. An empty column only takes a stack led by a king. Use the plus and minus keys on the selection bar to take one card more or less.
3. How do the foundations work?: Tap a column's top card and then a foundation to build it up from the ace, one card at a time in the same suit. Sent one up too early? Tap the foundation's top card and then a column to bring it back — the same landing rule applies. Undo is unlimited and free.
4. How do you win Yukon Solitaire?: Get all 52 cards onto the foundations. Once every hidden card is face up and each column is already in alternating descending order, an Auto-finish button appears and flies the rest home for you. The result card records moves, time, undos and hints, and fewer moves on the same game number is a new record.

Rules & variants

Yukon Solitaire basics: one 52-card deck without jokers, dealt entirely into seven columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards. Column one is a single face-up card; columns two to seven hide 1 to 6 face-down cards under five face-up cards — 21 face-down and 31 face-up in all. There is no stock, no waste pile and no free cell. The goal is to build each suit from ace to king on four foundations.

Moving stacks in Yukon: this is what sets Yukon apart from Klondike. Any face-up card can be moved together with every card on top of it, and that stack does not need to be in sequence. Only the card you pick up decides where it can land: the target column's top card must be the opposite colour and exactly one rank higher. A black 9 carrying four jumbled cards can go onto a red 10.

Empty columns and hidden cards: an empty column only accepts a king or a stack led by a king. Face-down cards can never be picked up, and a stack can never reach into them. When a column's last face-up card leaves, the top face-down card turns over automatically — as part of the same move, so it costs no extra move and undoes together with it.

Foundation rules: the four foundations start empty and are not tied to a suit — whichever ace arrives first claims a pile. After that they build up in the same suit, one card at a time. This version lets you move a foundation's top card back to a column under the normal landing rule, which helps when you need something to build on.

A worked example: say column three shows, bottom to top, ♠9 ♦4 ♣J ♥2 ♠6, column five ends in ♥10 and column six in ♣10. Tap ♠9 and all five lift; only column five lights up, because ♣10 is black like ♠9. Tap column five and the five cards land on ♥10 in the same order, column three's hidden card flips, and the move counter goes up by exactly one. Tapping column six instead is refused with "♠9 goes on a red 10".

Yukon strategy: ① dig out the columns with the most face-down cards first — the right-hand columns hide five and six cards and they are what really blocks you; ② since stacks move in any order, don't spend moves tidying a column — ask which stack uncovers a hidden card; ③ kings are the only tenants of an empty column, so don't clear one without a king ready; ④ send aces and twos home at once and keep higher cards on the tableau to build on; ⑤ taking a card back from a foundation and undoing are both part of the game.

Winnable deals and dead ends: by default this page only deals games a solver has proven winnable, and the game number lets you share the exact deal. Be aware that winnable is computed with all 21 hidden cards visible — you don't see them, so you can still walk a winnable deal into a dead end. The page checks the position in the background and, once it proves your line lost, offers to undo, jump back to the last winnable move, or resign. Turn off Winnable deals only in the menu for fully random deals.

Yukon versus other solitaires: Klondike also hides 21 cards but only lets you move ordered runs and draws the rest from a stock; Yukon deals everything at once and gives you the freedom to move jumbled stacks. Russian Solitaire uses the same deal but builds down in suit, which makes it much harder; Alaska allows building up or down in suit. This page plays classic Yukon — alternating colours, kings into empty columns — and does not include those variants.

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