Klondike Solitaire

How to play Klondike Solitaire

Klondike Solitaire is the patience game everyone knows. Deal seven columns, turn the stock, and move every card to the four foundations in order from ace to king.

• Tap a face-up card to pick it up, then tap where you want it to go.
• Build down in alternating colours on the seven columns — a red 7 goes on a black 8.
• Send aces to the four foundations and build each suit up to the king.
• Tap the stock to turn a card. When it is empty, tap it again to recycle the waste.

Tips that actually help

• Do not empty a column unless you have a king to put there — an empty column is worth more with a king in it.
• Turn a new card from the stock before rearranging piles you have already looked at.
• Double-tap any single card to send it straight home, and use Auto finish once the board is nearly clear.

What is Klondike Solitaire?

Klondike is the solitaire game that shipped with Windows for decades, and the version most people mean when they say patience. It uses one standard 52-card deck. Cards start in seven columns, each one deeper than the last, with only the top card of each column face up. The rest wait in the stock.

The three places a card can live

Every card you move goes to one of three places: another column (built down, alternating red and black), a foundation (built up, one suit per pile, starting with the ace), or the waste pile after you turn it from the stock. Almost every decision in the game is a choice about which of those three is worth doing first.

Why it is still worth playing

Unlike most solitaire variants, Klondike is not always winnable from the deal — a reasonable estimate is that around four in five deals can be finished with careful play, and the rest cannot. That is what makes it interesting: you are not just following rules, you are spotting which of the available moves keeps the most options open.

Draw one or draw three

The game comes in two flavours. With draw one you turn a single card at a time and the game is forgiving. With draw three you turn three at once and can only play the top one, which is markedly harder. Both are available here from the same deck.

Frequently asked questions