What Is Solitaire (Klondike)?

Klondike Solitaire is the single-player card game most people picture when they hear the word "solitaire" — the one Microsoft shipped with every copy of Windows from 1990 onward. Seven columns of cards are dealt in a triangular fan, four empty foundation piles wait above, and your job is to sort all 52 cards from Ace to King by suit. The rule set takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to actually beat consistently — Klondike has a roughly 82% solvability rate with optimal play, which is exactly why it stays addictive.

How to Play Klondike

The board has three zones: the tableau (seven columns, the first column has one card, the second has two, the third three, and so on up to seven; only the top card of each column is face-up), the foundation (four empty piles that you will build Ace-to-King by suit), and the stock and waste pile (the remaining 24 cards, drawn one or three at a time into the waste, from which the top card is playable).

Move cards by dragging or clicking. In the tableau, build sequences in descending order with alternating colours: a red 6 can sit on a black 7, a black 5 on a red 6, and so on down to the 2. Only a King (or a sequence led by a King) may be placed in an empty tableau column. Send any Ace you uncover to a foundation pile, then build each foundation up by suit from Ace to King.

When no tableau move is available, draw from the stock. Draw-1 mode flips one card at a time and is solvable roughly 82% of the time; draw-3 mode flips three and is the classic Windows default, solvable closer to 70% of the time. The game is won when all 52 cards have reached the foundations.

Controls

  • Click — select or auto-move a card (an Ace or a 2 will fly to the foundation if a destination exists)
  • Drag — move a card or a sequence to a specific target
  • Double-click — instantly send a card to its foundation if legal
  • Click stock — draw the next card (or three) into the waste pile

Winning Tips

Flip face-down cards before moving from the waste. Every face-down card you reveal is new information. Prefer moves that expose a face-down card over moves that reorganise already-revealed cards, even when the latter look tidier.

Hold Kings for empty columns. An empty tableau column can only accept a King, so do not move a King to a foundation-stacked position too early. Keep Kings in reserve for when you genuinely need to free up a column to expose a face-down card.

Don't send cards to the foundation unless you have to. Holding a 5 of hearts in the tableau lets you stack a black 4 on it; sending it to the foundation too early removes that landing spot. Send cards up only when the move does not block a tableau build you still need.

Play draw-1 if you are learning. Draw-1 flips one stock card at a time and gives you the entire stock to work with on every pass. Draw-3 hides two cards behind every flip and is dramatically harder; switch to it only once draw-1 feels routine.

Restart bad deals without guilt. Roughly 1 in 5 Klondike deals is mathematically unwinnable no matter how well you play. If your first ten moves expose no path to the foundations, the deal is likely one of them — start over.

Why Klondike Is Timeless

Klondike is the perfect brain game: it loads instantly, runs on any device, requires no account, and offers a clean balance of luck (the deal) and skill (the play). A round lasts three to ten minutes, which fits any break, and the satisfaction of watching the final King snap onto the foundations never gets old. It is also the gateway game — almost everyone who has ever used a computer has played at least one round of Klondike, which makes it the most universally recognised card game in the world.

The embedded player is live at the top of this page — click the stock to deal and you are playing.

Origins and Community Impact

Solitaire card games date to the late 18th century in northern Europe; the name "Klondike" was coined during the 1896 Yukon gold rush, when the layout was said to resemble a prospector's stake. Microsoft canonised the modern digital version in 1990 by bundling Microsoft Solitaire with Windows 3.0 — partly to teach users how to drag-and-drop with a mouse, which most people had never done. The tactic worked so well that the original Windows Solitaire team eventually estimated it had been installed on more than a billion PCs.

The modern competitive scene tracks Klondike on cloned deals — identical shuffles so players compete purely on move quality. Microsoft Solitaire Collection on Xbox and Windows ships daily challenges that pit millions of players against the same deal, and the global completion rate of any given Expert deal is published within hours of it going live.

Advanced Tips

Memorise the "two cards down" rule. When a face-down card sits beneath a King-led sequence, the only way to expose it is to move the entire King sequence to another column — so plan a landing spot before you ever move that King.

Track the unseen cards. In draw-3 mode, only every third stock card is immediately playable, but the two cards beneath it become playable on the next pass. Note which key cards (usually Aces and 2s) are buried in the stock so you can plan your tableau moves around when they will appear.

Empty a column deliberately. A deliberately emptied column is the most powerful position on the board — it can accept any King-led sequence, effectively letting you reorganise half the tableau. Aim to empty one column early and keep it empty as a "parking spot" until the endgame.

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between Klondike and Solitaire?
A: "Solitaire" is the family of single-player card games (hundreds of variants exist); Klondike is the specific variant most people mean when they say "solitaire" — the seven-column, four-foundation, draw-from-stock version above.
Q: Is every Klondike deal winnable?
A: No. Draw-1 Klondike is roughly 82% winnable with perfect play; draw-3 is closer to 70%. The remaining deals are mathematically unwinnable no matter what you do — that is part of the game's charm.
Q: Can I undo in real Klondike?
A: Tournament rules forbid undo. Most digital versions allow it, but if you want to compare your win rate to the published 82% baseline, disable undo and play the deal honestly.
Q: Why do I sometimes get stuck with all Kings buried?
A: That is a known deal pattern. If all four Kings sit in the lower half of face-down cards and you have no empty column to receive a King sequence, the deal may be unwinnable regardless of play. Restart.

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