Klondike Solitaire is the version of Solitaire most people mean when they say Solitaire — the one Microsoft has shipped with Windows since May 1990. The rules look simple enough: shuffle a deck, deal seven columns, build four foundations from Ace to King. The catch is that most of the cards start face-down, every move is irreversible without undo, and roughly one deal in six can't be won at all.
What is Klondike Solitaire?
Klondike Solitaire is a single-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. Your job is to move every card onto four foundation piles, one per suit, building each foundation from Ace upward to King. The game ships with Microsoft Windows under the name "Solitaire" and has done so since Windows 3.0 in 1990 — that version is so dominant that the word "Solitaire" without qualification almost always means Klondike.
The name comes from the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99, the same rush that sent prospectors swarming into Yukon Territory in northern Canada. The game itself is older — single-player card games existed in Europe by the late 1700s, and the broader family is still called "Patience" in the UK. The Klondike branding stuck in North America, probably because that's what the prospectors played by lantern-light in mining camps over the winter.
It's a deceptively hard game. Mathematician Latif Salum's 2008 analysis estimated that around 82% of randomly dealt Klondike Solitaire games are theoretically winnable when the player can see every card and play optimally. In real play, with most of the deck face-down and decisions irreversible, even strong players win 30–50% of Turn-1 games and closer to 15% of Turn-3 games. Microsoft's own telemetry reportedly placed the average user win rate around 8%.
How to play Klondike Solitaire
Step 1 — Deal the board
Deal seven tableau columns from left to right — one card in the first column, two in the second, three in the third, and so on up to seven in the seventh. Only the top card of each column is face-up. The remaining 24 cards become the stock pile in the upper-left, face-down. The four empty foundation slots sit in the upper-right, one per suit.
Step 2 — Build the tableau down by alternating colors
In the seven tableau columns you build downward by alternating colors. A red 5 goes on a black 6. A black 9 goes on a red 10. You can move a single card or move a whole run of cards together — so long as the run is itself a valid alternating-color descending sequence, it travels as one unit.
Step 3 — Use the stock to find new cards
When the tableau stalls, click the stock pile to deal cards into the waste. Standard Klondike Solitaire deals one card at a time (Turn 1); the original Microsoft ruleset deals three at a time with only the top card playable (Turn 3). The top waste card is always available — to the tableau or directly to a foundation.
Step 4 — Build the foundations up by suit
Each foundation starts with an Ace and builds upward in the same suit: Ace, 2, 3, 4, all the way to King. Send Aces and 2s up the moment they appear — they never help you in the tableau. After that, send cards up more carefully: each foundation card is one fewer card available to receive a tableau move.
Step 5 — Guard your empty columns
Only a King — or a run starting with a King — can be moved into an empty column. Empty columns are the most valuable real estate on the board. Many otherwise winnable Klondike games are lost by emptying a column at the wrong moment and stranding a useful card underneath it.
Step 6 — Win the game
You win when all four foundations are stacked Ace through King. Most games end before that, either with no legal moves left or with the player conceding. There's no shame in conceding an unwinnable deal — about one deal in six can't be won by any strategy.
The Klondike play area
A standard Klondike board has four regions. The seven tableau columns dominate the lower half of the screen — this is where most of the action happens. The stock pile sits in the upper-left, face-down, with the waste pile next to it where drawn cards appear face-up. The four foundation piles run along the upper-right, one per suit, marked with a faint suit icon when empty.
Most online Klondike Solitaire games — Mr. Solitaire included — also show a small information bar with the current move count, the elapsed game time, and the score. The settings menu offers a Turn 1 / Turn 3 toggle, a hints button, and an autocomplete button that fires automatically once the foundations can complete the game without any further decisions.
Available moves
Klondike has a small move vocabulary. After a game or two you won't think about it.
Draw from stock to waste. Click the stock; the top card (or top three, in Turn 3) flips to the waste. When the stock is empty, click the empty slot to recycle the waste back into the stock face-down. Turn 1 on Mr. Solitaire allows unlimited redeals; some Turn 3 rulesets cap the redeals at three.
Move from waste to tableau or foundation. The top of the waste is always playable — to the tableau if it fits an alternating-color descending sequence, or to a foundation if it matches the suit and is one rank higher than the foundation's top card.
Move from tableau to tableau. Either a single face-up card or a run of face-up cards forming a valid alternating-color descending sequence. The auto-flip rule kicks in when you uncover a face-down card.
Move from tableau to foundation. Single card only, matching suit, one rank above the foundation's top card.
Move from foundation back to tableau. Legal in standard Klondike Solitaire but usually a sign you played a card up too eagerly. Use it as a last-resort unblocker.
Klondike Solitaire strategy
Send Aces and 2s up immediately
Aces and 2s never receive anything useful in a Klondike tableau. Holding them — a common beginner instinct — only blocks the column they're sitting in. The moment an Ace appears, click it to its foundation. Same goes for any 2 once that suit's Ace is up. There is no decision to make here.
Flip face-down cards before anything else
Hidden information is the central problem in Klondike. Every face-down card you flip is a new option. Given a choice between two legal moves, take the one that flips a face-down card. Given a choice between flipping a face-down card and tidying an already-clean column, flip the face-down card — even when the tidy move looks more satisfying.
Build down on the column with the most face-down cards underneath
When you have a choice of where to place a card, send it to the column with the most face-down cards still hidden. You're not playing for a clean-looking board — you're playing for revealed information. A column with three face-down cards underneath is three potential moves waiting to happen.
Don't cycle the stock to "see what's there"
In Klondike Turn 1 a stock cycle costs nothing mechanically — but it costs everything in attention. By the third loop you've forgotten what you've already seen. Cycle the stock only when you have a specific card in mind that you need: a red 5 to extend a run, a King to claim an empty column. Cycling for inspiration is the surest way to play a slow, sloppy game.
Don't strand cards just to make an empty column
Empty columns are gold, but stranding cards to create one is a trap. Before moving the last card off a column, look at every card you've already committed underneath it. If you're stranding a card you'll need later — a 2 of clubs you'll want once the ace is up, say — leave the column intact and find another way.
Pause before sending a card to the foundation
In Klondike, it's tempting to send any legal foundation move the instant it appears. Don't. Each foundation card is one fewer card available to receive tableau moves. Before sending a 5 up, look at every 4 still in play — could you use that 5 as a receiver for one of them? If so, leave the 5 on the tableau for now and revisit after the 4s are placed.
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Klondike Turn 1 vs Turn 3
Turn 1 and Turn 3 are the same Klondike Solitaire game with one rule difference, and that one difference makes them feel like different games entirely.
Turn 1 draws one card from the stock per click. Every card is potentially playable as soon as it appears, and cycling the stock is mechanical — you're looking through 24 cards one at a time. Win rates for experienced players land around 40–50%.
Turn 3 draws three cards from the stock per click, stacked together in the waste with only the top card playable. To reach the second or third card in any draw, you have to play the cards on top of it or burn through the entire stock again. Win rates drop to roughly 10–15% for the same player.
The original Microsoft Windows Solitaire used Turn 3. When Microsoft Solitaire Collection arrived on Windows 10 in 2012, both options shipped and Turn 1 became the default. Most casual players today play Turn 1; the masochists and the purists stay on Turn 3.
If you're new to Klondike Solitaire, start on Turn 1, learn the strategy fundamentals (especially the "flip face-down cards first" rule), then graduate to Turn 3 once you're consistently winning 50% of Turn-1 games. Jumping to Turn 3 too early teaches the wrong habits — you'll start cycling the stock recklessly because it feels productive, when really you're shuffling forward five moves to draw a card you didn't actually need.
Mr. Solitaire supports both modes; switch from the settings panel before you start a new game.
Odds of winning Klondike Solitaire
Klondike's solvability has been studied seriously since at least the 1990s. The most-cited number comes from Latif Salum's 2008 analysis, which estimated that around 82% of Klondike Solitaire deals are theoretically winnable when the player has full knowledge of every card position. Later analyses by Ronald Bjarnason and Alan Fern at Oregon State refined this further with reinforcement-learning agents.
The "full knowledge" qualifier matters. With cards as the game actually presents them — most face-down, decisions irreversible — the achievable win rate is much lower. Strong human players win roughly 40–50% of Turn-1 games with no undo, 15% of Turn-3 games with no undo, and 60%+ of Turn-1 games when unlimited undo is allowed.
Microsoft's own telemetry, by way of reporting from former Microsoft staff, places the average across all Windows Solitaire players around 8% — but that figure mixes serious players with people clicking around at lunchtime, and is heavily skewed by abandoned games.
So when you finish a Klondike Solitaire session having won six of fifteen games, you're playing well. When you lose ten in a row, that isn't necessarily a skill problem — somewhere around one in five deals is genuinely unwinnable no matter how you play it.
History of Klondike Solitaire
Klondike Solitaire's exact origin is unclear. Single-player card games existed in Europe by the late 1700s, and the family of games called "Patience" had standardized rules in Britain by the 1850s. What's certain is that the specific seven-column layout we play today was named after the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99, presumably because prospectors played it on long winter nights in mining camps along the Klondike River in Yukon, Canada.
The game's modern fame is almost entirely Microsoft's doing. In 1989, a Microsoft intern named Wes Cherry wrote a Solitaire program in his spare time. Microsoft bundled it with Windows 3.0, which shipped on May 22, 1990. The original purpose, according to Cherry and Microsoft designer Susan Kare (who drew the iconic card art), was to teach Windows users to operate a mouse — drag-and-drop was new and unfamiliar, and Solitaire was a low-stakes way to learn it. Cherry famously was not paid royalties for the work.
By the early 2000s, Microsoft Solitaire had become one of the most-used pieces of software ever written. Microsoft Solitaire Collection — the modern bundled version that includes Klondike Solitaire, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid, and TriPeaks — has been installed on over a billion devices and was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2019.
The web era added another generation of players. Sites like World of Solitaire in the early 2000s gave the game a permanent home outside the Windows ecosystem; Mr. Solitaire is part of the modern crop, built mobile-first and ad-light.
Frequently asked questions
What is Klondike Solitaire?
- Klondike Solitaire is the most common form of Solitaire — a single-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. The goal is to build four foundation piles, one per suit, from Ace to King. It's the version Microsoft has shipped under the name "Solitaire" with every copy of Windows since 1990, which is why most people use the names interchangeably.
How many cards are used in Klondike Solitaire?
- A standard 52-card deck. Four suits of thirteen cards each, Ace through King. No jokers, no wild cards. Twenty-eight cards go into the seven tableau columns on the initial deal; the remaining twenty-four form the stock pile.
Are all Klondike Solitaire games winnable?
- No. Latif Salum's 2008 mathematical analysis estimated the theoretical solvability of randomly dealt Klondike Solitaire games at around 82% with perfect knowledge — meaning roughly one deal in six is unwinnable no matter how skillfully you play. In real play, where most cards start face-down, even strong players win 30–50% of Turn-1 games.
What's the difference between Turn 1 and Turn 3 Klondike?
- Turn 1 draws one card at a time from the stock; every card is immediately playable. Turn 3 draws three cards stacked at once, with only the top card playable. Turn 3 is the original Microsoft Windows ruleset and is significantly harder — win rates drop from roughly 40% on Turn 1 to around 15% on Turn 3 for the same player.
Why is it called Klondike Solitaire?
- The name comes from the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99 in Yukon, Canada. The seven-column layout was likely popularized by prospectors during long winters in mining camps. The broader family of single-player card games is called "Patience" in the UK and most of Europe; the name "Klondike Solitaire" stuck in North America.
Who invented Klondike Solitaire?
- Klondike's origin is unclear — Patience-style single-player card games existed in Europe by the late 1700s. The modern version's fame is owed to Wes Cherry, the Microsoft intern who wrote the original Windows Solitaire in 1989. Microsoft bundled it with Windows 3.0 in 1990, originally to help users learn to drag and drop with a mouse.
What's the best opening move in Klondike?
- It depends on the deal, but two heuristics always apply. First, send any visible Ace or 2 to its foundation immediately — they never help you in the tableau. Second, when you have a choice of moves, take the one that flips a face-down tableau card. Hidden information is the central problem in Klondike Solitaire; every face-up card is one more decision you can make.
Can you undo a move in Klondike Solitaire?
- Yes — Mr. Solitaire allows unlimited undo and redo within a game. Using undo doesn't invalidate your leaderboard time, but it does add to your move total, so practiced players use it sparingly. Some Vegas-style scoring rulesets penalize undos heavily; Mr. Solitaire's standard scoring does not.
Does Mr. Solitaire offer Klondike Solitaire scoring and leaderboards?
- Yes. Mr. Solitaire tracks moves, elapsed time, and a standard Klondike score on every game. Sign in with a Google account to save stats across devices, and play the daily challenge — one fixed deal that every player sees on a given day — to compete on the leaderboard. Guest play is unlimited and free; you only need an account if you want stats synced.
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