Solitaire Rules

Overview

Klondike Solitaire is a single-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. The objective is to move all 52 cards to four foundation piles, building each from Ace to King by suit. Solitaire has been a beloved pastime for over 200 years and was popularized worldwide by its inclusion in Microsoft Windows.

The Deck

Solitaire uses a standard 52-card deck with four suits: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. Each suit has 13 cards: Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, and King.

Setup

Deal 28 cards across 7 tableau columns. Column 1 gets 1 card, column 2 gets 2 cards, column 3 gets 3 cards, and so on up to column 7 with 7 cards. The top card of each column is dealt face-up; all others are face-down. The remaining 24 cards form the stock pile.

Tableau Rules

The tableau is the main playing area with 7 columns where most of the action happens:

• Build downward in alternating colors (red on black, black on red). For example, a red 6 can be placed on a black 7.
• You can move a single face-up card or a sequence of properly ordered face-up cards between columns.
• Only Kings can be placed on empty tableau columns.
• When a face-down card is exposed by moving cards off it, it is automatically flipped face-up.

Foundation Rules

The four foundation piles are where you build to win the game:

• Each foundation pile is built by a single suit, starting with the Ace and building up to the King (A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K).
• You can move cards to the foundation from the tableau or from the waste pile.
• Cards can be moved back from the foundation to the tableau if needed (with a scoring penalty).

Stock & Waste

The stock and waste piles provide additional cards to play:

• Click the stock pile to flip cards to the waste pile. In Draw 1 mode, one card is flipped at a time. In Draw 3 mode, three cards are flipped.
• Only the top card of the waste pile can be played.
• When the stock is empty, click the empty stock area to recycle the waste pile back into the stock.

Draw 1 vs Draw 3

In Draw 1 mode, you flip one card at a time from the stock, making the game easier. In Draw 3 mode, you flip three cards at a time but can only play the top card, making the game more challenging. Draw 3 is the traditional mode and is considered the standard for competitive play.

Winning

The game is won when all 52 cards have been moved to the four foundation piles. When all cards in the tableau are face-up and the stock is empty, the game can auto-complete by moving cards to the foundations automatically.

Scoring

Standard scoring awards points for various moves: