Klondike Solitaire | Play Klondike Solitaire Online for Free
Klondike Solitaire is the single-deck patience game most English-speaking players simply call "Solitaire." It uses a standard 52-card deck dealt across seven tableau columns plus a stock and waste pair, and the goal is to move every card to four foundation piles built up by suit from Ace to King. This page covers the Turn 1 variant — every stock click flips a single card to the waste, so every drawn card is immediately playable.
How to Play
- Deal 7 tableau columns: 1 card in column 1, 2 in column 2, …, 7 in column 7. Only the top card of each column starts face-up.
- Move cards between tableau columns in descending order with alternating red and black suits.
- Send Aces to the four foundations and build them up by suit from Ace to King.
- Use the stock pile to draw cards into the waste when the tableau is stuck. In Turn 1 each draw exposes one card.
- Empty tableau columns can only be filled with a King or a group whose bottom card is a King.
- When the stock empties, click the empty slot to recycle the waste back into the stock for another pass.
- Use Undo to reverse a regrettable move and Hint to surface a productive move when you are stuck.
- You win when all 52 cards reach the foundations.
Strategy
Always uncover face-down cards before chasing a foundation. The single biggest cause of stalled Klondike deals is a winnable position locked behind a few face-down cards that the player ignored in favor of building neat tableau sequences. Every face-down card you expose effectively adds an option to your future move set; every one you leave buried subtracts one. When two moves are equally legal, prefer the one that flips a face-down card.
Hold low cards in the tableau as long as they are useful. A Two committed to the foundation can never come back, but a Two on the tableau can absorb the opposite-color Three sitting in your waste pile and keep a long sequence chain alive. The same goes for Threes and Fours. Send a low card to the foundation only when the matching next-rank card is no longer needed as a tableau target.
Manage empty columns deliberately. An empty column is a King-only parking spot, which means it is only valuable if you have a King ready (or about to be ready) to land in it. Creating an empty column with no candidate King in sight strands the slot until a buried King surfaces; meanwhile you have lost the option to build the column you just emptied. Plan King placement two or three moves in advance.
Cycle the stock with intent. Every full pass through the stock should advance something — a foundation play, an exposed face-down card, a sequence consolidation. If a full pass yields nothing new, you are almost certainly stuck and should undo back to your last branch point rather than cycling again hoping for a different outcome. The stock order does not change between passes; only your tableau changes.
History
Klondike Solitaire takes its name from the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-1899, when patience games of all kinds were widely played in the prospector camps of the Yukon and Alaska. The exact origin of the modern Klondike ruleset is murky — single-deck patience games with a stock, waste, and tableau of cascading face-down cards predate the gold rush, and the "Klondike" name was probably attached to the variant during the rush by players who picked it up in the camps and brought it home. The game appears in published patience compendia by the early twentieth century under the names Klondike, Demon, Triangle, Patience, and (most commonly in American houses) simply Solitaire. The game reached its mass-market apex when Microsoft bundled it as Microsoft Solitaire with Windows 3.0 in 1990, designed by intern Wes Cherry as a way to teach office workers to use the mouse. Microsoft estimates the bundled Solitaire became one of the most-played computer programs in history across its three decades of Windows distribution. Today Klondike remains the canonical patience game in essentially every English-speaking country, with Turn 1 the most common variant played casually and Turn 3 the variant of choice for players seeking a stiffer challenge.
Extended Guide
The Klondike deal is fixed: seven tableau columns receive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 cards respectively. Only the top card of each column starts face-up; the rest are face-down until uncovered. The remaining 24 cards form the stock pile, and the waste sits next to it as a single-card display of whatever you most recently drew. Above the tableau, four empty foundation slots wait for Aces.
Tableau columns are built downward in alternating colors. A red Six can land on a black Seven; a black Five can land on the red Six. Single cards or already-ordered groups can move between columns as long as the top card of the lifted group continues the destination column's descending alternating-color sequence. Empty tableau columns can only be filled with a King (or a group whose bottom card is a King).
Foundations build upward by suit, starting with Ace. Once an Ace reaches the foundation you may add the matching Two, then the Three, and so on up to King. Foundation cards usually stay parked, but they are not frozen — you can pull a card back down to the tableau if doing so helps clear a stuck position. Most players avoid this except in clear endgame situations.
When the tableau is stuck, tap the stock to draw a card to the waste. In Turn 1 each tap reveals exactly one card. The top of the waste is always available to be played to the tableau or to a foundation. When the stock empties, clicking the empty slot returns the entire waste pile to the stock so you can cycle through again. This site imposes no redeal limit on Turn 1 by default.
Most Turn 1 deals are winnable with careful play, but a meaningful minority are not — about 79% of random deals are theoretically solvable, while average human win rates fall somewhere in the 25-35% range depending on skill and patience. Our default Klondike games come from a curated seed library that biases toward solvable deals, so most casual sessions end in a clean win when you play methodically.
You win when all 52 cards reach the foundations. You lose when no legal move remains and the stock has been cycled without progress. Most tables show three helper buttons: Hint surfaces a productive move when you cannot find one, Undo reverses your last move (and can be tapped repeatedly to walk back further), and Auto-complete cascades the rest of the deck to the foundations once every face-down card is exposed.
Klondike Turn 1 is the easier of the two main draw variants. Turn 3 draws three cards at a time and only makes the top of the drawn group immediately playable, which dramatically reduces the number of useful stock plays per pass. If Turn 1 feels too forgiving, the Turn 3 variant linked at the bottom of this page is the standard next step.
The mobile layout puts the tableau in a portrait-oriented grid sized for thumb reach, with the stock and foundations along the top edge. Touch-and-hold a card to lift it together with the cards above it; tap a card to send it to the best legal destination (foundation first, then the longest valid tableau column). The interface uses Unicode suit characters rather than card images so the page loads instantly even on a slow connection.
Glossary
- Stock
- The face-down pile of undealt cards, drawn one card at a time in Turn 1.
- Waste
- The face-up discard pile next to the stock. The top card is always available to play.
- Foundation
- One of four piles built upward by suit from Ace to King. All 52 cards on the foundations equals a win.
- Tableau
- The seven-column playing field where cards are arranged in descending alternating-color sequences.
- Turn 1
- The stock-draw variant where each click reveals exactly one card, making every drawn card immediately playable.
- Redeal
- Recycling the waste pile back into the stock to begin another pass through the remaining cards.
- Auto-complete
- A feature that cascades remaining cards to the foundations automatically once every face-down card is exposed.
- Cascade
- A descending alternating-color sequence of cards in a tableau column.
Beginner Tips
- Uncover face-down cards before chasing foundations. Every face-down card you expose adds a move option; every one left buried subtracts one.
- Hold Twos, Threes, and Fours in the tableau until the matching next rank is no longer needed as a target. A low card committed to the foundation cannot come back.
- Only fill an empty column when you have a King ready. A vacant column with no King candidate is a wasted slot.
- Every full pass through the stock should advance something. If a pass yields nothing new, undo to your last branch point rather than cycling again.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Klondike Solitaire?
Klondike is the most widely played single-deck patience game in the English-speaking world. Played with a standard 52-card deck, the goal is to move every card to four foundation piles ordered by suit from Ace to King. Cards are dealt into seven tableau columns of 1 to 7 cards (only the top card of each starts face-up), with the remaining 24 cards forming a stock pile that is drawn from to find playable cards. Turn 1 is the variant that draws one card per stock click.
How do I win Klondike?
Build four foundation piles, one per suit, from Ace up to King. Use the tableau columns as a workspace, building down in alternating red and black colors, and use the stock and waste to surface cards you need. The game is won when all 52 cards have moved to the four foundations. The game is lost when no legal move remains and cycling the stock no longer produces useful candidates.
What is the win rate for Klondike Turn 1?
With perfect play and full access to the future of the deck, approximately 79% of Klondike Turn 1 deals are theoretically solvable. Real-world win rates for human players sit well below that — typically in the 25-35% range for average players and 45-60% for experienced players. Our default games are drawn from a curated solvable-seed library, which lifts the theoretical ceiling to 100% for the deals you see here.
What goes in an empty tableau column?
In Klondike, only a King (or a group whose bottom card is a King) may fill an empty tableau column. This is one of the rules that makes Klondike harder than Yukon Solitaire, where empty columns accept any card. The King-only rule is the reason buried Kings are so important to surface during the midgame.
Can I redeal the stock?
Yes. When the stock pile empties, clicking the empty stock slot returns the entire waste pile to the stock so you can cycle through again. By default Turn 1 imposes no redeal limit. If a full pass through the stock yields no progress, you are almost certainly stuck and should look at undoing recent moves rather than cycling again.
How is Turn 1 different from Turn 3?
In Turn 1, each stock click reveals one card and that card is immediately playable. In Turn 3, each click reveals three cards and only the topmost is immediately playable; the two underneath become playable only as you peel the top card off. Turn 3 has a meaningfully lower theoretical win rate than Turn 1 because many cards are effectively blocked from reaching play.
Can I undo a move?
Yes. The Undo button reverses your most recent move and continues stepping back through your move history as long as the undo stack has entries. Undo is unrestricted in casual play; it is a useful tool both for fixing a regretted move and for exploring branching choices before committing.
Is the game free to play?
Yes. Klondike Solitaire plays instantly in your browser with no signup, no ads, and no in-app purchases. Your single-player history is stored on your device until you decide to sign in.