How to Play Solitaire: Rules, Setup, and Winning Strategy
Solitaire is the most-played card game in the world, and almost everyone has clicked through a hand of it — but far fewer people know the strategy that turns a frustrating loss into a satisfying win. This complete guide covers the rules and the deal, exactly how to win, the crucial difference between Draw 1 and Draw 3, the mistakes that quietly sink most games, the real odds of winning, and the surprisingly modern history of the game. By the end you will play sharper hands and win more of them.
What Is Solitaire?
“Solitaire” is the name most people use for Klondike, a single-player card game played with one standard 52-card deck. (In Britain, single-player card games are called “patience,” and Klondike is the best-known patience of all.) The goal is to sort the entire deck into four ordered piles, one per suit, running from Ace up to King. It became a household name because it shipped with Microsoft Windows in 1990 — bundled in partly to teach a generation how to use a mouse — and it has been a daily habit for hundreds of millions of people ever since. You can play it right now on our free Solitaire game.
The Setup: How Solitaire Is Dealt
Understanding the layout is the first step to reading the board well. A game of Klondike is built from four areas:
- The tableau — seven columns dealt left to right. The first column gets one card, the second two, and so on up to seven in the last column. Only the bottom card of each column (the one nearest you) starts face up; everything above it is face down.
- The stock — the 24 cards left over after the deal. They sit face down and you turn them over as you play.
- The waste — where cards from the stock are turned face up, ready to be played.
- The foundations — four empty spaces, one for each suit, that you build up from Ace to King. Filling all four wins the game.
That is 28 cards in the tableau and 24 in the stock — the full 52. From this position, everything you do is about carefully unburying the cards you need.
The Rules of Play
Klondike has only a handful of rules, and they are easy to remember once you see the logic behind them:
- Build the foundations up by suit. Each foundation starts with an Ace, then takes the 2, 3, 4, and so on of the same suit, all the way to the King.
- Build the tableau down in alternating colours. On the columns you stack cards in descending order with colours alternating — a red 6 goes on a black 7, a black 5 goes on a red 6.
- Move runs, not just single cards. Any face-up sequence that already alternates colour can be picked up and moved as a group onto a card one higher and the opposite colour.
- Flip face-down cards. Whenever you move the last face-up card off a pile in the tableau, the face-down card beneath it turns over.
- Only Kings fill empty columns. When a column is completely cleared, only a King — or a run headed by a King — may be placed into the empty space.
- Turn the stock when stuck. Deal cards from the stock to the waste to find new plays. When the stock runs out, gather the waste back into the stock and go again.
Win by getting all 52 cards onto the foundations. That is the entire game — simple to state, but with enough depth that no two hands feel the same.
Draw 1 vs. Draw 3: The Big Choice
Before you deal, you pick how many cards turn over from the stock at once, and this single setting changes the game more than any other.
| Mode | How it works | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Draw 1 | Turns one card at a time; every card is reachable | Easier — most deals are winnable |
| Draw 3 | Turns three at a time; only the top of the three is playable | Harder — many cards stay hidden |
In Draw 1, you eventually see and can play every card in the stock, so you have far more control — it is the right mode for learning and for winning streaks. In Draw 3, the cards come in packets of three and only the top one is available, so two of every three stock cards are locked away until you cycle around again. It rewards memory and planning and is the classic “hard” setting. If you are new, start on Draw 1; when you want a real challenge, switch to Draw 3.
How to Win at Solitaire: Core Strategy
Solitaire is not pure luck. Two players dealt the same hand will get very different results, because winning comes down to a handful of disciplined habits. Here are the ones that matter most.
1. Always uncover face-down cards first
The face-down cards in the tableau are your hidden information, and every one you flip gives you more options. When you have a choice of moves, favour the one that turns over a face-down card — especially from the taller columns, where the most cards are trapped. Progress in Klondike is measured in cards revealed.
2. Play Aces and 2s immediately, but be careful after that
Aces and 2s can never be useful on the tableau, so send them to the foundations the moment they appear. Higher cards are different: a low card left on the table can be a valuable landing spot for the opposite colour. Rushing every 3, 4, and 5 up to the foundations too early can strand cards you later need to move — a classic way to lose a winnable game.
3. Do not empty the stock for nothing
Every pass through the stock reshuffles nothing — the order is fixed — so turning cards you cannot use just brings you closer to a dead end in Draw 3. Make your tableau moves first, and only dip into the stock when the board offers nothing else. In Draw 1 you can cycle more freely, but the same principle holds: play what is in front of you before you go digging.
4. Treat empty columns as prime real estate
An empty column is one of the most powerful assets in the game, because it is a place to park a King and to break apart long runs. But an empty column is only useful if you have a King to fill it — and ideally a King that unblocks something important. Do not clear a column and then immediately drop the nearest King into it out of habit; hold the space for the King that does the most work.
5. Think before you feed a colour
When two different cards could make the same move, the colour you choose shapes your future options. If you need a black 6 to land on a red 7, and both black 6s are available, take the one whose removal also frees a useful card. Small colour decisions compound over a whole game.
A Worked Example
Imagine your columns show, from the bottom up, a face-up black King, a red Queen, and a black Jack already stacked in one column, while another column is a single face-up red 5 sitting on a stack of face-down cards. You draw a black 4 from the stock. The tempting move is to send nothing anywhere and draw again — but the black 4 belongs on the red 5, and making that move does nothing to help. The stronger play is to look for a red card to move onto your black Jack run, unburying a face-down card, and to keep the black 4 in the waste until placing it actually reveals something. Every move should answer the question, “what does this uncover?”
What Are the Odds of Winning?
Not every deal can be won, and knowing the rough odds keeps you from blaming yourself for an impossible hand. With perfect play, it is estimated that around 80% or more of Draw 1 Klondike deals are winnable — though ordinary human play wins far fewer, often in the range of 40–50%. Draw 3 is meaningfully harder, with winnable-deal estimates commonly cited around 30–40% under perfect play and real win rates lower still. The gap between “winnable in theory” and “won in practice” is exactly the room that strategy fills. If you lose a hand, there is a good chance it could have been won with a different line — which is why the Undo button is your friend.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Emptying the foundations too aggressively. Sending every low card up early feels like progress but removes landing spots you need.
- Filling an empty column with the wrong King. The first King is rarely the best King. Wait for the one that frees the most cards.
- Turning the whole stock without a plan. Especially in Draw 3, mindlessly cycling the stock wastes chances and hides where useful cards sit.
- Ignoring the taller columns. The most face-down cards — and the biggest breakthroughs — are buried in the seven-card and six-card columns. Prioritise digging there.
- Not using undo. Solitaire is a puzzle. Stepping back to test a different order is how you turn losses into wins, not cheating.
Popular Solitaire Variations
Klondike is only the beginning. Once you are comfortable, these well-known relatives are worth exploring:
- Spider Solitaire — played with two decks across ten columns, building sequences by suit; famous for its two-suit and four-suit difficulty settings.
- FreeCell — nearly all cards are dealt face up and there are four free “cells” to park cards, which makes almost every deal solvable and turns the game into pure strategy.
- Pyramid — remove pairs of cards that add up to 13 to dismantle a pyramid of cards.
- TriPeaks and Golf — fast, streak-based games where you clear cards one rank above or below the current one.
Each shares Klondike's DNA — one player, one deck of possibilities, and a puzzle to untangle.
A Short History of Solitaire
Single-player card games appear in print in northern Europe in the late 1700s, and by the Victorian era “patience” games were a popular parlour pastime — even Napoleon was said, probably apocryphally, to have played them in exile. Klondike itself is thought to be named after the Yukon gold rush of the 1890s, evoking the prospector's gamble. But the game's explosion into a global habit is entirely modern: when Microsoft included it in Windows 3.0 in 1990, it became, almost overnight, one of the most-used pieces of software ever written. For millions of people, Solitaire and the personal computer arrived together.
Is Solitaire Good for Your Brain?
Beyond being a pleasant way to pass time, Solitaire gives your mind a genuine, low-stakes workout. It exercises planning and sequencing as you look several moves ahead, working memory as you track which cards have passed through the stock, and patience as you resist the tempting-but-weak move in favour of the one that unburies more of the board. Because a single game is short and self-contained, it is an easy way to take a real mental break — a few focused minutes that reset your attention without swallowing your afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you play Solitaire for beginners?
Deal seven tableau columns with only the bottom card of each face up, keep the rest as a stock, and aim to build four foundation piles up by suit from Ace to King. On the tableau, stack cards down in alternating colours, flip face-down cards whenever you uncover them, and turn the stock when you run out of moves. Start on Draw 1 while you learn.
Can every game of Solitaire be won?
No. A large share of Draw 1 deals are winnable with perfect play, but some are genuinely impossible, and Draw 3 is harder still. If a hand feels stuck, use Undo to try a different order before giving up — many “lost” games were actually winnable from an earlier choice.
What is the trick to winning Solitaire?
There is no single trick, but the highest-value habit is to always prefer moves that flip a face-down card, dig into the tallest columns first, and avoid sending low cards to the foundations before you have used them as landing spots. Save empty columns for the most useful King.
What is the difference between Solitaire and Klondike?
They are the same game. “Klondike” is the proper name for the specific patience that most people simply call “Solitaire” because it was the default game on Windows. Other solitaires exist — Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid — but the unqualified word almost always means Klondike.
Is Solitaire a game of luck or skill?
Both. The deal is luck, but which deals you win is largely skill. Since a big majority of Draw 1 deals are theoretically winnable yet most players win far fewer, the difference is decision-making — proof that skill decides most games.
Why does only a King go on an empty column?
Because the King is the highest card, nothing can be built above it, so it is the natural anchor for a new descending run. Restricting empty columns to Kings keeps the game challenging — an empty column is a resource you have to earn a King to use.
Start Playing
The best way to internalise all of this is to play a few hands with the strategy in mind. Our free online Solitaire offers Draw 1 and Draw 3, unlimited undo so you can experiment, an auto-finish to close out won games, and a timer to chase your best. It runs entirely in your browser with no download and no signup — deal a hand and put your new strategy to work.