Klondike is the solitaire most people mean by the word: seven columns across the table, four empty piles waiting for the aces, and a stock of cards you turn over a few at a time. It is played alone, with one ordinary deck, and the whole of it is a question of getting fifty-two cards from where the shuffle put them to where they belong.
The deal
The table is laid out in seven columns. The first column gets one card, the second two, and so on up to seven in the last — twenty-eight cards in all. Only the bottom card of each column is face up; everything above it is face down and unknown. The other twenty-four cards go into the stock, face down, in the top-left corner. Next to it is the waste, where cards land when you turn them from the stock, and across the top right are the four empty foundations.
The goal
Move every card onto the four foundations, one pile per suit, built up from the ace to the king: ace, two, three, and so on, all the same suit. When all fifty-two are home, the deal is solved. The game keeps your fastest solve on your device, along with a score and a move count for the deal in front of you.
The rules
Columns build down, in alternating colours
A card can go onto the bottom card of a column if it is one lower and the other colour: a red six on a black seven, then a black five on that red six. Suits do not matter in the columns, only colour. A run that is already in order moves as one piece, so you can lift a black nine with a red eight and a black seven under it and drop the lot onto a red ten.
Moving a card turns the one above it over
When the last face-up card leaves a column, the face-down card above it turns over. That is the only way the hidden cards ever come out, and it is where the game is won or lost.
Only a king goes into an empty column
Clear a column completely and the gap can only be filled by a king, or a run with a king at its head. An empty column is the most valuable space on the table, and also the easiest one to waste.
Foundations build up, one suit each
Any ace can start a foundation. After that each pile takes only the next card of its own suit: the two of hearts on the ace of hearts, then the three. A card on a foundation can be dragged back down onto a column if you need it there — it is allowed, it costs points, and occasionally it is the only way forward.
The stock, and going round again
Tap the stock to turn cards onto the waste. Only the top card of the waste can be played. When the stock runs out, tap its empty slot and the waste turns back over to become the stock again, in the same order. There is no limit on how many times you can go round.
Draw one or draw three
The gear in the top bar chooses how many cards a tap of the stock turns over. Draw one turns a single card, so every card in the stock comes past you on every pass — this is the forgiving game, and most deals can be solved. Draw three turns three at a time and only the top one of the three is playable, so on each pass you see only every third card until a play changes the rhythm. It is the harder game and the one that genuinely loses. Changing the setting starts a fresh deal.
Controls
- Tap a cardSends it wherever it can legally go — a foundation first if it fits there, otherwise a column. Tapping a card in the middle of a column moves it with everything below it.
- Double-tapSends a card straight to its foundation, if it fits.
- DragPick up a card or a run and drop it exactly where you want it, when there is more than one place it could go.
- Tap the stockTurns the next card, or three. Space or D does the same on a keyboard.
- UndoThe curved arrow takes back the last move, draws included, up to two hundred moves back. Z or Backspace.
- HintThe lightbulb, or H, rings one good move in gold for a couple of seconds. It never suggests shuffling a card back and forth.
- New gameThe refresh arrow, or N, deals a new hand.
Hints, dead ends and the finish
The hint looks for a move that actually gets somewhere: one that turns a face-down card over, sends a card home, plays the waste, or clears a column. When the only useful thing left is to keep drawing, it rings the stock instead. When the next step is buried deeper — a card that has to come off a foundation first so something else can follow it — it walks you through the sequence one move at a time.
No moves left. If the deal reaches a point where nothing on the table or in the deck can make progress — only moving the same card back and forth between two columns — a small panel says so and offers to deal again or undo. It only appears when the deal is genuinely stuck, and only once for each dead end. Undo is often the better choice: an earlier decision may have been the one that closed it off.
Auto-finish. Once every card in the columns is face up, the rest is bookkeeping, and an Auto-finish button appears at the foot of the table (F on a keyboard). It sends the cards home for you.
Scoring
- +10 for every card that goes to a foundation.
- +5 for playing a card from the waste onto a column.
- +5 every time a face-down card turns over.
- −15 for taking a card back off a foundation.
The score and the move count are there for your own interest. The number the game remembers is the time of your fastest solve.
Tips
Turn cards over before you touch the stock
A face-down card is the only thing in the game you genuinely do not know. Every one you free is a card you can now plan around, so look at the columns first and the stock second.
Work on the longest columns
The right-hand columns hide six cards each. When you have a choice of moves, take the one that digs into the column with the most face-down cards — the short columns will clear themselves anyway.
Do not empty a column without a king to fill it
A space only kings can use is worthless until a king is ready for it. Clearing a column early can leave you with a hole and nothing to put in it, when the cards you moved were doing useful work where they were.
Do not rush every card home
Aces and twos should go up straight away. After that, a card on a foundation is a card that can no longer hold anything in the columns: that red five might be the only place a black four could have gone. Send cards up when nothing below still needs them.
Choose which king takes the space
When you have an empty column and two kings to choose from, pick the one whose move frees more face-down cards, or the one with the right-coloured queen waiting for it.
Good to know
- Every card on the table — the pips, the corners, the backs — is drawn by the page itself. There is nothing to download, it starts instantly, and it stays sharp at any size.
- The deal in progress is saved on your device, so closing the tab and coming back picks up where you left off. So is your fastest solve.
- No account, and nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data clears the saved deal and your best time.
- Klondike deals are not all winnable. Some are lost before the first card moves, especially in draw three, and no amount of skill changes that. The no-moves panel is there so you are never left staring at one of those wondering what you missed.