The best-known single-player card game: stack the seven tableau columns in descending order with alternating colors, and move all 52 cards onto the four foundations by suit, ace to king. This version is simplified for phones — moves are two taps (pick, then place) instead of dragging, the stock draws one card at a time and recycles without limit, and you get a 100-move undo plus an auto-finish button. The rules are friendlier than the standard three-card draw, so far more deals are winnable.
Four deliberate departures from the classic rules: ① one-card draw (standard is three), ② unlimited stock recycling, ③ two taps instead of drag-and-drop, ④ undo. All four make deals easier to solve.
A face-down card flips automatically once every face-up card above it is cleared — exactly the original rule.
Moving a card back down from a foundation to the tableau is allowed (also an original rule) — useful when you need it as a hook.
The timer starts on your first move; records stay in your browser and nothing is sent to a server.
Dig out face-down cards first. The real objective is information: every flipped card multiplies your options. Prefer moves that uncover the columns with the most hidden cards (the right-hand ones).
Send aces and twos up immediately, but hold the rest. Middle ranks still serve as hooks for tableau builds; promoting them early starves your columns.
An empty column is a king slot. Emptying a column without a king ready wastes the space. Decide which color king goes there — and check its queen and jack exist in play — before you clear it.
Exhaust the tableau before touching the stock. Drawing early shifts the waste order and buries cards you will need.
① One-card draw: the classic standard turns three cards and exposes only the top; here every stock card becomes reachable in turn, which lowers difficulty substantially.
② Unlimited redeals: when the stock empties, the waste flips back over with no pass limit — no Vegas-style scoring restrictions.
③ No dragging: moves are two taps. A mobile-ergonomics choice; the rules themselves are unchanged.
④ Undo: up to 100 moves of snapshots, so you can explore branches like a puzzle.
All four push in the easier direction, so comparing your times against classic three-card records is not apples to apples — race your own best instead.
The share of winnable Klondike deals depends heavily on the rules. With one-card draw and unlimited redeals, roughly 80–90% of deals are believed theoretically solvable — the exact figure remains an open research problem.
Human win rates run far lower, because you commit to irreversible choices with hidden information. Undo closes much of that gap, letting you play closer to the theoretical ceiling.
Three-card draw with limited redeals — the classic tournament setup — feels several times harder. If this version starts feeling easy, that is your next step up.
Promoting every playable card to the foundations. A five or six sent up early can no longer catch a four or five in the tableau. Tableau first, foundations later.
Rushing to empty a column. Without a king ready, an empty column adds no moves. Plan the emptying and the king move as one unit.
Placing a king without checking colors. The king's color dictates the whole column's alternation; pick the color whose queen and jack you can already see.
Flipping the stock out of habit. Every early draw rotates the waste and buries cards deeper.
Klondike takes its name from the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, where miners reputedly played it; in Europe the wider family of games was already known as patience.
Its global fame came with Windows 3.0 in 1990, which bundled Solitaire — famously as mouse-drag practice — making it, for years, one of the most-run programs in the world.
This page follows those Klondike rules plus the four simplifications above, runs entirely in your browser with no redirects, and works offline once loaded.
Build the seven tableau columns downward in alternating colors (red on black, black on red); only kings may fill empty columns. Build the four foundations upward by suit from ace to king. Getting all 52 cards onto the foundations wins the game.
By design. Two taps — pick a card, tap its destination — are more precise on a phone, where a dragging finger hides the card under it. Tapping the picked card again sends it straight to its foundation.
Without limit. Combined with one-card draw this is much friendlier than the classic three-card rules, and the large majority of deals become winnable.
It repeatedly moves every playable top card — from the waste and each column — to the foundations until nothing fits, saving dozens of end-game clicks. Same scope as the classic auto-complete.
Yes. Even with one-card draw and unlimited redeals, a minority of deals (studies put it roughly between 8% and 18%) cannot be solved. When truly stuck, undo back to a branching point — or deal a new game.