Yukon Solitaire | Play Free Online
Yukon Solitaire is a single-deck patience game in the Klondike family with one crucial twist: there is no stock pile to draw from. The tableau is dealt across seven columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 cards — the top of each column is face-up, with the lower cards in the longer columns face-down until uncovered. About 60% of the deck (31 of 52 cards) is visible from the first move — far more than Klondike's 24 — so Yukon rewards careful planning. The four foundations build up by suit from Ace through King. What makes Yukon distinct from Klondike is that you can pick up a card together with the entire stack of cards above it, regardless of whether that stack is in descending alternating-color order. The receiving column must obey the rules, but the lifted group does not have to. This relocation power, combined with the fact that empty columns accept any card (not just Kings), makes Yukon a satisfying mid-difficulty solitaire where skill matters far more than luck.
How to Play
- Deal seven tableau columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 cards. The top card of each column is face-up; in the longer columns the lower cards are face-down until you lift cards off the top to expose them. There is no stock pile and no waste — the entire deck is on the board from the first move.
- Build tableau columns down by one rank with alternating red and black colors. For example, a red ten can be placed on a black Jack, and a black nine can be placed on the red ten.
- Move any face-up card together with every card resting on top of it, even if those upper cards are not in a valid descending alternating sequence. The destination only checks the bottom card of the lifted group — the rest comes along for the ride.
- Send Aces to the four foundation slots when they become available, then build each foundation up by suit from Ace to King. There are no rules about when you have to send a card to the foundation; you may strategically delay if a card is more useful holding a position in the tableau.
- Fill an empty tableau column with any card you like. Unlike Klondike, Yukon does not require a King to fill an empty space, so empty columns become flexible relocation slots rather than King-only parking spots.
- There are no redeals and no shuffling mid-game. Every move is final unless you use undo, and the game is over when either all 52 cards reach the foundations (you win) or no legal moves remain (you lose).
- Tap a card to send it to the best legal destination automatically. The tap router will prefer the matching foundation if available, then look for a valid tableau target. Drag a card to lift it together with its tail for multi-card relocations.
- Use the Hint button when you are stuck. It surfaces one productive move; if the hint resolver returns nothing, the position is genuinely blocked and you should consider undoing back to an earlier branch point.
Strategy
Treat the long right-hand columns as a problem to be unpacked, not as cards to leave alone. The right-most column has 11 cards, and freeing the buried cards underneath is almost always the central planning challenge of any Yukon deal.
Resist the urge to send every Ace to the foundation immediately. Aces in the tableau are inert and easy to relocate later, while Twos and small cards often serve as useful landing spots for higher cards that you need to peel off a long column.
Plan multi-card lifts in advance. Because the cards stacked on top of your lifted card do not need to be in order, you can use a single move to reposition four or five cards at once — but only if the destination accepts the bottom card. Look for these compound moves before resorting to one-card shuffles.
Keep at least one tableau column empty whenever you can. An empty column in Yukon is a universal staging area: you can drop any card or any group there, which gives you a workspace to disassemble buried sequences. Trading two short stacks for one empty column is almost always worth it.
Watch the colors of the Kings. To build all the way to King on each foundation, every King has to become reachable. If a King is buried under six cards in the right-most column, your entire game plan revolves around excavating it.
When two tableau moves are equally legal, prefer the one that frees a buried Ace or low rank you will need on the foundation later in the game. Every Two, Three, and Four that you can clear into a foundation reduces the size of the tableau you have to manage during the endgame.
Do not be afraid to leave a long descending run mid-build if breaking it lets you reach a critical buried card. The flexibility of group lifts means you can reassemble the run later by picking up the whole tail at once.
Track your undo budget. Yukon rewards thinking ahead, so use undo to explore a branch and then commit to the version that opens the most paths. Mindlessly clicking through moves and undoing every mistake will rarely beat a hard deal.
If you fill the foundations through Five or Six on every suit and still have most of the tableau remaining, slow down. The midgame is where Yukon deals are won and lost — keep at least one empty column and one short staging column available for the cascade to King.
Most Yukon deals are solvable with perfect play, but a non-trivial minority are not. If you have tried multiple branches and nothing opens up, the deal may genuinely be lost. Start a new game without guilt — the next deal will be guaranteed solvable from our pre-validated seed library.
History
Yukon Solitaire takes its name from the Yukon territory in northwestern Canada, a region long associated in popular imagination with the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–1899. The game itself is a 20th-century variant of Klondike Solitaire that first appears in widely-distributed patience compendia in the post-war era and gained mainstream digital popularity when it was included in solitaire bundles shipped with Windows and Mac in the 1990s. The "no stock" design is sometimes attributed to mid-century game designers looking for a deeper-strategy patience that reduced — though did not eliminate — the hidden information in Klondike's tableau. With no stock and the freedom to lift any face-up card with its tail, Yukon trades Klondike's draw-pile suspense for tableau-excavation puzzles. Yukon has remained a favorite of players who prefer skill-based patience games to luck-driven ones, and it continues to appear in most contemporary solitaire collections alongside FreeCell and Spider.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Yukon Solitaire?
Yukon is a single-deck solitaire in the Klondike family. The deck is dealt across seven tableau columns with no stock pile. The top of each column is face-up; the lower cards in the longer columns are face-down until exposed. You build the four foundations up by suit from Ace to King, and you can move groups of cards together even if they are not in valid descending order.
How is Yukon different from Klondike Solitaire?
Three differences. First, Yukon shows you about 60% of the deck face-up from the start (31 of 52 cards) — far more than Klondike's 24 — but the lower cards in the longer columns are still face-down until uncovered. Second, there is no stock or waste pile — you work entirely from the tableau. Third, you can lift a card together with any cards stacked on top of it, regardless of whether those upper cards form a valid sequence. In Klondike, you can only move ordered descending alternating-color runs.
Is every Yukon deal winnable?
Not every random deal is winnable, but the large majority are. We ship pre-validated solvable seeds for our default Yukon games, so every deal you start from the main page is guaranteed to have at least one solution with perfect play. The skill challenge is finding that solution.
Can I move multiple cards at once?
Yes. Yukon allows you to pick up any face-up card together with every card resting on top of it. The cards above the lifted card do not need to be in any particular order — only the bottom card of the lifted group has to be a legal landing on the destination column.
What can I put in an empty column?
Any card. Unlike Klondike, where empty columns can only be filled by a King, Yukon empty columns accept any single card or any group whose bottom card is anything from Ace through King. This makes empty columns extremely valuable as flexible staging areas.
Are there face-down cards in Yukon?
Yes — 21 cards are dealt face-down. The top card of each column is face-up, but in columns 2 through 7 the lower cards (1 to 6 at the bottom, respectively) are face-down until you lift cards off the top to expose them. Yukon still gives you far more information than Klondike, but it is not a perfect-information game.
Is the game free to play?
Yes. Yukon plays instantly in your browser with no signup, no ads, and no in-app purchases. You can also play offline once the page has loaded.