Solitaire · Complete guide
Solitaire: how to play Klondike, and how to win more deals
The game that taught the world to drag and drop — and a card puzzle where the deal matters more than anything, but careful play still decides most winnable hands.
Klondike is the game almost everyone means by "solitaire": seven piles, twenty-four cards in the stock, and four foundations to build from ace to king. Get all 52 cards home and you have won.
The rules are quickly stated — build down in alternating colours on the tableau, up in suit on the foundations, and only a king may fill an empty pile — but the strategy is not what people assume. The real objective is not the foundations at all: it is turning over face-down cards. Every hidden card is a blocked pile and unknown information, and the commonest way to lose a winnable deal is sending cards to the foundations too early.
Not every deal can be won, and that is not a failure of play. Computer studies of "thoughtful" Klondike — played with full knowledge of every card — suggest roughly four in five draw-three deals are winnable at best, and playing blind wins far fewer.
Its modern fame is an accident of software: Microsoft shipped it with Windows 3.0 in 1990, written by an intern, specifically to teach people to drag and drop with a mouse. It worked rather too well.
How to play
The deal, the four regions of the table, how the tableau builds down in alternating colours, why only a king can fill an empty pile, and the difference between draw-one and draw-three.
Where it comes from
Single-player card games appear only in the late 1700s, sometimes as fortune-telling. A century later the Klondike layout takes a gold rush name — and in 1990 an unpaid intern makes it the most played computer game in history.
- Patience games appear only in late 18th-century northern Europe, long after cards reached Europe.
- Several early patiences were played as fortune-telling, deciding a question by success or failure.
- The Klondike layout took its name from the 1890s Yukon gold rush.
- Microsoft Solitaire shipped with Windows 3.0 in 1990, written by intern Wes Cherry with art by Susan Kare.
How to win
Why sending cards to the foundation early loses games, how to choose which king fills an empty pile, how the draw-three cycle can be shifted deliberately, and how to spot a dead deal.
- Turning face-down cards over is the real objective — prioritise it over everything else.
- Only aces and twos should go to the foundations automatically; other cards may be needed.
- Never empty a tableau pile unless you have a king ready for it.
- In draw-three, playing a waste card shifts the cycle and makes buried cards reachable.
Common questions
Can every game of Solitaire be won?
No. A substantial share of deals are unwinnable however you play. Studies of draw-three Klondike with full knowledge of the pack put the winnable share at roughly four in five.
Should I always send cards to the foundations?
No — this is the most common mistake. Aces and twos, yes; other cards are often needed on the tableau to accept cards and keep piles moving.
What can go in an empty column?
Only a king, or a run headed by a king. Emptying a pile without a king available usually achieves nothing.
What is the difference between draw one and draw three?
Draw one turns a single stock card at a time, so everything is reachable. Draw three turns three at once and only the top is playable, so two cards in three are temporarily inaccessible.
Why is it called Klondike?
After the 1890s Klondike gold rush, where the game was popular among prospectors. It is one of dozens of patience games, but by far the best known.
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