How to Play Klondike Solitaire
Klondike solitaire uses one 52-card deck. Deal seven columns of one to seven cards with the last card of each face up; the other 24 cards are the stock. Build four foundations up from Ace to King in one suit each, build the tableau down in alternating colours, and fill empty columns with Kings only.
The rules, step by step
- 1Deal 28 cards into seven columnsColumns of one to seven cards, only the last card of each face up.
- 2Turn the stock three at a timeOn draw three, three cards go to the waste at once and only the top one is playable. On draw one, one card at a time.
- 3Build the tableau down, alternating coloursBlack on red, red on black, one rank at a time. Ordered runs move together.
- 4Kings only in empty columnsAn empty column takes a King or a King-headed sequence, nothing else.
- 5Foundations run Ace to King in suitFour piles, one per suit, built upward. Cards may come back down if you need them.
- 6Recycle the waste and keep goingWhen the stock empties, the waste turns over to become the new stock. Repeat until you win or run out of moves.
Try it — the rules above, running
Draw 3. Three cards at a time, only the top of the three playable, and a redeal reproduces exactly the same triples. Until you play a card off the waste, two cards in every three stay locked away — which is why the order inside the stock matters enormously. The original Windows setting.
Your statistics · Draw 3
- Played
- 0
- Won
- 0
- Win rate
- 0%
- Streak
- 0
- Best streak
- 0
- Best time
- —
Kept in this browser, on this device only. Abandoning a deal in progress counts as a loss, so the win rate means something.
Today’s deal
Everyone playing Klondike Solitaire today gets deal #2470499591. It changes at midnight UTC.
Track the month on the daily challenge page.
Replay a deal
Every deal is a pure function of its number, so deal #20260726 is the same shuffle on any device, any time.
Keyboard
- U / Z
- Undo
- R
- Redo
- H
- Hint
- N
- New deal (asks first)
- F
- Full screen
- Space
- Turn the stock
- A
- Auto-finish
- Esc
- Deselect, or leave full screen
How many cards does each column get?
| Column | Cards | Face up |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 4 | 4 | 1 |
| 5 | 5 | 1 |
| 6 | 6 | 1 |
| 7 | 7 | 1 |
| Stock | 24 | 0 |
What can move onto what?
- Foundation: an Ace onto an empty pile, then the same suit ascending — A, 2, 3 … K.
- Tableau: a card onto one that is a single rank higher and the opposite colour.
- Empty column: a King, or a run headed by a King.
- A run of correctly ordered face-up cards moves as one unit.
- A card may be pulled back off a foundation into the tableau.
How do you win a Klondike game?
By moving all 52 cards to the foundations. Once every card is face up and the stock is gone, the rest is mechanical — the board will finish it for you with the Auto-finish button.
How do you win more often?
- Cycle the stock before you commitOn draw three the stock's rotation is fixed until you play a card from it. Look at the whole cycle first so you know which cards you can actually reach.
- Prefer the column with more hidden cardsGiven a choice of two identical-looking moves, take the one that uncovers a card in the deepest column. Those are the cards most likely to strand you late.
- Keep one colour of low card backIf both black Fives go to the foundations early, every red Six is stuck. Watch the pairs, not just the individual cards.
- An Ace is never a mistakeAces and Twos can always go up — nothing in the tableau will ever need them. Everything above a Five is a judgement call.
Common questions about klondike solitaire
- How many times can you redeal in Klondike?
- Here, unlimited. Casino Klondike traditionally allows three passes on draw one and unlimited passes on draw three, but no rulebook is authoritative.
- Can you move a partial sequence in Klondike?
- Yes. Any correctly ordered face-up run can be split and the lower part moved, provided it lands on a card one rank higher of the opposite colour.
Ready to stop reading? Play klondike solitaire on the full board, with statistics, deal numbers and unlimited undo.