Solitaire rules

Setup & the deal

The deck is shuffled and 28 cards are dealt into seven tableau columns. Column one gets 1 card, column two gets 2, and so on up to 7 cards in column seven. In every column only the top card is face up; the cards under it stay hidden until you dig them out. The tableau therefore starts with 21 face-down cards and 7 face-up ones.

The remaining 24 cards form the face-down stock. Next to it sits the empty waste pile, where drawn cards land face up. Above the board are four foundation slots, one per suit (♠ ♥ ♦ ♣) — each suit has its own marked slot and only that suit may ever be played there.

Before you draw, pick your mode: Draw 1 turns one stock card at a time, Draw 3 turns three at once. Restart replays the exact same deal, so you can retry a hand you misplayed.

How to move cards

• Tableau building — a card (or run) may land on a tableau card exactly one rank higher and of the opposite color: a red 9 on a black 10, a black Jack on a red Queen. The target card must be face up.
• Moving runs — any face-up card may be picked up together with everything on top of it, provided the whole group is already a legal sequence (descending by one, alternating colors). You can move a partial run: picking up from the middle of a longer run is fine.
• Empty columns — only a King, or a run starting with a King, may be placed on an empty tableau column.
• Foundations — build up in suit from the Ace: A, 2, 3 … K. Only single cards move to a foundation, never a run, and each suit only fits its own slot. Double-click or tap a playable card to send it home automatically.
• The waste — only its top card is playable, to the tableau or a foundation. Nothing can ever be placed back onto the waste.
• Foundation to tableau — the top card of a foundation may come back down onto a legal tableau spot. It costs 15 points, but it is a real, legal move and sometimes the only way to unblock a column.
• Flipping — when you move away the last face-up card of a column, the face-down card beneath flips automatically (and scores 5 points).

A worked example: the 8♦ may be placed on the 9♠ or the 9♣ — either black nine works, since only rank and color matter, never the exact suit. Once a black 7 lands on that 8♦, the pair becomes a run and can travel together to the other black nine, or ride along when the nine itself moves.

Every move works both by drag-and-drop and by tapping: tap or double-click a card and the game sends it to its foundation when that is legal. Nothing about the rules changes with the input method — a tap simply plays a legal move for you.

The stock & redeals

Click the stock to draw. In Draw 1 a single card flips onto the waste; in Draw 3 three cards flip over one at a time, so the last card drawn ends up on top and is the only one playable. If fewer than three cards remain in Draw 3, you get whatever is left.

Because the cards flip over one at a time, a Draw 3 group lands on the waste in reverse: if the stock’s next three cards are the 2♣, then the 9♦, then the Q♠, the Q♠ ends on top and must be played or buried before the 9♦ ever becomes available. Cards you play out of the waste change how the remaining cards group on the next pass — the core of Draw 3 planning.

When the stock is empty, clicking it recycles the entire waste back into the stock in its original order — the cards come around in the same sequence every pass. There is no limit on redeals in either mode: you may go through the deck as many times as you like.

Scoring

Scoring follows the classic standard system. Your score can never go below zero — penalties clamp at 0.

Moves are also counted separately, and a timer tracks your game — moves and time are stats, not score modifiers.

Winning & auto-finish

You win the moment all four foundations hold 13 cards — the entire deck sorted Ace to King by suit.

Once nothing is hidden any more — the stock and waste are both empty and every tableau card is face up — the game offers auto-finish. It plays the endgame for you, always sending the lowest playable card to its foundation first, one card at a time. At that point the win is guaranteed, so the button just saves you the clicking.

Klondike never declares a formal loss: with unlimited redeals the stock always offers another pass, so a dead deal is one you decide to abandon. Roughly 80% of deals are theoretically winnable, and Restart lets you retry the exact same hand once you have seen where the bodies are buried.

Edge cases & fine print

• A foundation card may return to the tableau, but a card can never move from one foundation to another, even when the move would look legal.
• Only the first card of a moved group is checked against the destination — but the group itself must already be a valid alternating descending run, or it cannot be picked up at all.
• You cannot play a card straight from the stock; every stock card passes through the waste first.
• In Draw 3, playing or moving waste cards shifts which three cards surface together on the next pass — skipping a playable card can genuinely change your future draws.
• The recycle preserves waste order exactly, so the stock is fully predictable after your first pass through it.
• Score events combine within one move: sending a tableau card to a foundation while its departure flips a hidden card scores 10 + 5 = 15 points.
• The moves counter ticks on every action — card moves, draws and recycles alike.
• Undo is unlimited and works through every move, including draws and recycles. Restart re-deals the identical hand.

Variants

We play standard Klondike with unlimited redeals and classic point scoring, in your choice of Draw 1 or Draw 3 — the same rules as cardgames.io. Draw 3 is the traditional, harder game; Draw 1 is friendlier and the better way to learn.

Other published Klondike variants exist that we do not use: Vegas scoring (pay 52, earn 5 per foundation card, one or three passes only), limited-redeal Klondike (one or two passes through the stock), and Thoughtful Klondike, where all cards are dealt face up. If you like the fully open style, try FreeCell — every card is visible from the deal.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• FreeCell rules — every deal is winnable — plan ahead
• Spider rules — two decks, eight runs — 1, 2 or 4 suits
• Canfield rules — the ruthless casino solitaire — beat the odds
• Yukon rules — no stock, move any group — dig them out