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How to Play Klondike Solitaire

In a nutshell: The classic - Build four foundations from Ace to King. You play with 1 deck (52 cards), it's rated easy to learn, and ~80% of turn 1 deals are winnable.

Klondike is the world's most popular solitaire game - The one most people simply call “Solitaire”. Build the four foundations up from Ace to King by suit, moving cards between seven tableau columns in descending order and alternating colors. Turn 1 flips one stock card at a time; Turn 3 flips three and is the tougher, purist's way to play. It is the version most people picture when they hear the word "solitaire" - The one that shipped with Windows and taught a generation to use a mouse. Beneath its familiar surface lies a surprising amount of decision-making: which face-down card to attack first, when to hold a card back from the foundations, and how to manage a limited stock all separate a lucky finish from a skillful one.

Klondike at a glance

Goal	Move all 52 cards onto the four foundations, one per suit, built up from Ace to King.
Decks used	1 standard 52-card deck - 52 cards in play
Difficulty	Easy to learn
Chance of winning	~80% of Turn 1 deals are winnable
Play modes	Turn 1, Turn 3
Family	Classic

Step by step

History of Klondike

Klondike takes its name from the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s, when tens of thousands of prospectors poured into Canada's Yukon territory. Isolated in remote camps with long idle winters, miners are said to have passed the time with the single-deck patience game that later carried the region's name, and the association stuck.

The game spread through printed collections such as Lady Adelaide Cadogan's Victorian patience books and the many "Games of Patience" volumes that followed. For decades it was simply one of dozens of documented patiences, no more famous than Canfield or Forty Thieves.

Its explosive modern popularity came from software. Microsoft bundled a Klondike game called simply "Solitaire" with Windows 3.0 in 1990, partly to teach users the click-and-drag mouse. It became one of the most-played computer programs in history, and for hundreds of millions of people the words "solitaire" and "Klondike" now mean exactly the same thing.

How to Win Klondike: Strategy

💡 Top tip: Always flip a face-down card when you can - Exposing hidden cards is worth more than almost any other move.

Winning tips, in order of importance

1. Prefer moves that free up the longest face-down piles first.
2. Don't rush cards to the foundations; you may need low cards in the tableau to move other cards around.
3. Empty columns are powerful but only Kings can fill them - Plan which King (and which color) you want before emptying a column.
4. In Turn 3, count the waste cycle: the order of the stock repeats, so plan which third card you need to unlock.
5. Deal through the entire stock once early to learn which cards are available before you commit to a risky tableau structure.
6. When you have a choice of moves, build toward the colors and ranks that will let you unload the waste pile fastest.

Advanced tactics for Klondike

1. When choosing which King to move into an empty column, pick the color that lets you unload the most cards from the waste and other columns immediately afterward.
2. Delay recycling the stock until you have exhausted every tableau play; each pass through a Turn 3 stock reorders which cards land on top.
3. Keep a mental note of which foundation cards are still buried so you don't strand a needed low card by playing its color partner up too soon.
4. When two columns can each receive the same card, prefer the move that exposes a face-down card rather than one that merely shuffles face-up cards.
5. In Turn 3, sometimes deliberately play a card you don't need in order to shift the three-card grouping and reach a card that was previously skipped.
6. Avoid emptying a column unless you already hold or can quickly reach a King, because an empty column with no King to fill it just freezes usable space.
7. Build long alternating-color runs in the tableau to relocate them wholesale later, but keep at least one flexible landing spot for each color.

Common Klondike mistakes to avoid

• Rushing every Ace and low card up to the foundation - you may still need those low cards in the tableau to move other cards around.
• Emptying a column with no King ready to fill it - you strand usable space that then sits frozen for the rest of the game.
• Ignoring face-down cards - flipping a hidden card is worth more than almost any tidy-looking waste play, so chase the flips first.
• In Turn 3, dealing through the stock at random - the order repeats, so plan which third card you need before you cycle it.

Klondike Variations

Turn 1 vs. Turn 3

Turn 1 deals a single stock card per click and is far more forgiving; Turn 3 deals three at once with only the top card playable, hiding two of every three cards and demanding careful counting.

Vegas scoring

You buy the deck for $52 and earn $5 per card sent to a foundation, playing for cumulative bankroll across deals rather than for a clean win, which changes when it is worth taking risks.

Thoughtful Solitaire

All stock and face-down cards are shown from the start, turning Klondike into a pure planning puzzle used by researchers to study how often deals are theoretically winnable.

Klondike by Threes with unlimited redeals

A common middle ground that keeps the three-card deal but lets you cycle the stock as many times as you like, softening Turn 3's difficulty considerably.

Double Klondike

Played with two decks, eight foundations, and nine tableau columns, giving a longer, busier game with more simultaneous plays to track.

Klondike FAQ

Klondike guides & strategy

• Mastering Klondike: 12 pro strategy rules
• Turn 3 vs Turn 1 Klondike: which should you play?
• More solitaire strategy guides on the blog

Still have a question about Klondike Solitaire? Browse the full solitaire FAQ, look up a term like classic or easy to learn in the solitaire glossary, or compare Klondike with the other games in the rules for every solitaire.

Last updated 2026-07-03.

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Want to sharpen your game first? Start with our guides on mastering Klondike and Turn 3 vs Turn 1, or read the surprising 250-year history of solitaire.

Common questions about Solitaire.now

Types of Solitaire

"Solitaire" isn't a single game - It's a whole family of single-player card games, known in Britain as patience. Hundreds of variants exist, but almost all of them fall into a handful of mechanical categories that determine how the game actually feels to play. The largest group is the build-down games, where you stack cards into descending sequences and slowly ferry them onto foundation piles - Klondike, the game most people simply call "Solitaire," is the archetype. A second group is the matching and adding games, where you clear a layout by pairing or chaining cards by rank rather than building long tableaus; Pyramid, TriPeaks and Golf all live here and tend to play fast. A third, smaller but beloved group is the open-information games like FreeCell, where every card is dealt face up from the start, so there's no luck of the draw during play - Only planning. Games also differ by how much is hidden, how many decks they use (one or two), and whether you get a stock to draw from. Understanding which category a game belongs to tells you almost immediately whether it will be a relaxing five-minute break, a tense logic puzzle, or a marathon that rewards thinking six moves ahead.

Classic

The classics are the games most people picture when they hear "solitaire" - The ones that shipped with early versions of Windows and defined the genre. They range from the familiar foundation-building of Klondike to the pure-logic challenge of FreeCell and the casino-born cruelty of Canfield.

• Klondike Solitaire - The classic - Build four foundations from Ace to King. Klondike is the world's most popular solitaire game - The one most people simply call “Solitaire”. (Easy to learn, 1 deck.)
• Spider Solitaire - Build eight full King-to-Ace runs across ten columns. Spider deals two full decks across ten tableau columns. (1 Suit easy · 4 Suits expert, 2 decks.)
• FreeCell Solitaire - Every card face up, four free cells - Nearly every game winnable. FreeCell deals the entire deck face up into eight columns, so nothing is hidden and nearly every game can be won - It's pure strategy. (Pure skill, 1 deck.)
• Canfield Solitaire - The casino game - Beat the 13-card reserve if you can. Born in Richard Canfield's 1890s Saratoga casino, where gamblers bought the deck for $50 and earned $5 per card they could foundation. (Hard, casino-born, 1 deck.)

Matching

Matching games ditch long tableaus in favor of speed. Instead of building suited sequences, you clear a fixed layout by pairing cards or chaining them by rank. Rounds are short, the rules are simple, and a good streak is deeply satisfying - Perfect for a quick break.

• Pyramid Solitaire - Pair cards that add to 13 and dismantle the pyramid. Pyramid deals 28 cards into a seven-row pyramid. (Quick & tactical, 1 deck.)
• TriPeaks Solitaire - Ride card chains one rank up or down to level three peaks. TriPeaks deals three overlapping peaks of cards. (Fast & streaky, 1 deck.)
• Golf Solitaire - Clear seven columns onto the waste - Lowest score wins. Golf deals 35 cards into seven face-up columns. (Simple, subtle, 1 deck.)

Klondike Family

These games share Klondike's alternating-color, build-down DNA but deal every card into the tableau at the start - No stock, no waste - And let you move whole groups of cards at once. The result is far more open information and much deeper strategy.

• Yukon Solitaire - Klondike's wild cousin - Move any face-up group, no stock. Yukon deals all 52 cards at the start - No stock, no waste. (Deep & thinky, 1 deck.)
• Russian Solitaire - Yukon's brutal sibling - Builds must follow suit. Russian Solitaire is Yukon with one merciless change: tableau builds must be the same suit instead of alternating colors. (Very hard, 1 deck.)

Spider Family

Spider-family games are about assembling long, in-suit King-to-Ace runs. This branch blends that goal with the free-wheeling group moves of the Yukon family for a distinctive, puzzle-like challenge.

• Scorpion Solitaire - Spider-style suit runs with Yukon-style group moves - And a sting in the tail. Scorpion crosses Spider with Yukon: build four King-to-Ace runs in suit, moving any face-up card with everything on top of it onto the next-higher card of the same suit. (Tricky, 1 deck.)

Two-Deck

Two-deck games use all 104 cards and eight foundations, so a single game can stretch out and demand real patience. Bigger boards mean bigger consequences: one buried card can decide the whole deal.

• Forty Thieves Solitaire - Two decks, forty guards, one pass through the stock. Forty face-up cards guard ten tableau columns; behind them, a 64-card stock you may pass through exactly once. (Expert, 2 decks.)

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