Section 1: Introduction
Klondike is the patience game most people mean by "solitaire" — the one bundled with decades of desktop computers. One player works alone to move all 52 cards onto four foundation piles, each built up in suit from ace to king.
It is genuinely a solo game: there is no opponent, and a meaningful share of deals cannot be won at all no matter how well they are played.
Section 2: The Deck
- One standard 52-card deck, no jokers.
- Cards rank ace (low) up to king on the foundations, and king (high) down to ace in the tableau.
- Colour matters for tableau building: hearts and diamonds are red, clubs and spades black.
Section 3: Setup & Deal
- Deal seven tableau columns left to right: one card in the first, two in the second, up to seven in the last.
- The top card of each column is face up; everything beneath is face down.
- The remaining 24 cards form the stock, face down.
- The four foundations start empty, above the tableau.
Section 4: Gameplay
Legal Moves
- To a foundation: start with an ace, then build up in the same suit — A, 2, 3 and so on to king.
- Within the tableau: build down in alternating colours — a red six onto a black seven.
- A face-up run may be moved as a unit if the sequence stays valid.
- Exposing a face-down card turns it face up.
- An empty column may only be filled by a king (or a run headed by one).
The Stock
- Turn cards from the stock to the waste pile; the top waste card is playable.
- Draw one or draw three — draw-three is markedly harder and is the traditional form.
- When the stock empties the waste is turned over to reform it. Whether this is unlimited or capped is the single biggest difficulty setting.
Section 5: Scoring & Winning
The game is won when all 52 cards reach the foundations — four complete suits, ace to king.
The game is lost when no legal move remains and the stock cannot help.
If You Are Keeping Score
Casual play is simply won or lost. Computerised versions commonly award points per card sent to a foundation, per face-down card turned, and deduct for elapsed time or for recycling the stock — none of which is part of the traditional game.
Not every deal is winnable. Under draw-three with unlimited redeals, a substantial minority of shuffles are unsolvable regardless of play, so losing is not necessarily a mistake.
Section 6: Variants & House Rules
- Draw one vs draw three: the main difficulty lever.
- Limited redeals: the stock may be recycled once, three times, or not at all.
- Vegas scoring: "buy" the deck and earn per card on the foundations, tracked cumulatively across deals.
- Thoughtful solitaire: all cards are visible from the start, turning it into a pure puzzle.
- Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid: separate patience games entirely, often confused with Klondike because software bundles them together.