Solitaire

How to play

Build all four suits up from ace to king on the foundations at the top right. In the tableau below, cards stack downward in alternating colours, so a red six goes on a black seven. Tap a card to pick it up, then tap where it should go. Only a king can move into an empty column. Turn the stock at the top left when you run out of moves, and it recycles once exhausted. Undo is unlimited, so an experiment costs you nothing.

Tips

• Turn over face-down cards before anything else. Every hidden card is a move you cannot yet see.
• Take from the column with the most face-down cards first. That is where the puzzle is really locked.
• Do not rush aces and twos to the foundations. Low cards in the tableau are useful landing spots.
• Think before emptying a column. Only a king can fill it, so an empty column with no king available is wasted.
• Work the stock as a loop and plan a whole pass before committing. The order of the pile never changes.

Klondike, the solitaire everyone knows

When people say solitaire they almost always mean Klondike, the version with seven tableau columns and a stock you turn through. It dates from the 1890s and probably takes its name from the Klondike gold rush, but its real fame came a century later, when Microsoft shipped it with Windows 3.0 in 1990 to teach people to use a mouse. It went on to become one of the most played computer programs of any kind.

This version turns one card at a time from the stock and recycles the stock when it is exhausted, which is the more forgiving of the two common rulesets. Even so, not every deal can be won. Estimates for Klondike put the share of winnable deals somewhere around 80 percent, but knowing whether a particular deal is one of them is famously hard, which is why undo is unlimited here.

Playing Klondike well

• Turn face down cards before anything else. Every hidden card is information you do not have.
• Take from the column with the most face down cards. That is where the deal is really locked.
• Do not rush low cards to the foundations. A 2 or 3 in the tableau is a place to park cards; on the foundation it is gone.
• Only a king can fill an empty column, so do not empty one unless you have a king ready to move.
• The stock is a fixed loop. Plan a full pass through it before committing, because its order never changes.

Common questions

Can every deal be won?

No. A minority of Klondike deals are unwinnable no matter how well you play, which is why undo is unlimited and a new deal is always available.

What can go into an empty column?

Only a king, or a run headed by a king.

How does the stock work?

It turns one card at a time onto the waste pile, and when it runs out the waste pile is turned back over to become the stock again, in the same order.