Solitaire Glossary
These are the words used in the strategy guides and on the pages of Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid and TriPeaks, the five games the entries are written for. Each entry is short and uses the meaning it has on this site. The other games reuse many of these words, and their own pages give their rules.
- Ace
- The lowest card of a suit. It counts as 1, starts every foundation, and in TriPeaks it sits next to the king in the wrap.
- Alternating colors
- The building rule of Klondike and FreeCell: a red card goes on a black card, and a black card on a red one. A red 6 fits on a black 7. See: Klondike, FreeCell.
- Autoplay
- A setting that sends cards to the foundations for you. It moves a card only when that cannot hurt your position, and it never takes one back down.
- Build down
- To place a card on a card one rank higher, so a 6 goes on a 7. Klondike and FreeCell also require alternating colors; Spider ignores suit when you place a card. See: Klondike, FreeCell, Spider.
- Cascade
- FreeCell's name for a column of the tableau. There are eight of them, all dealt face up. See: FreeCell.
- Cell
- A parking spot above the FreeCell table that holds exactly one card. There are four, and a card in a cell can leave again at any time. See: FreeCell.
- Column
- A vertical pile of the tableau. Klondike has seven, Spider has ten, and FreeCell has eight, which it calls cascades. See: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell.
- Complete run
- A Spider run from king down to ace in one suit. When one forms in a column it leaves the table by itself, and eight of them win the game. See: Spider.
- Covered card
- A card with another card lying on top of it, or partly over it. A covered card cannot be played until what covers it is gone.
- Daily deal
- The one deal per game that is the same for everyone on a given UTC date. It comes from the winnable pool. See: Daily deal.
- Dead end
- A position from which no sequence of moves can win, even though some moves are still legal. Hints can lead into one.
- Deal
- The act of laying out the cards at the start, or in Spider the act of putting one stock card on each column. Also the particular arrangement of cards in one game.
- Deal seed
- The short code in a deal's web address. The same seed always lays out the same cards, so a friend who opens your link plays your deal.
- Draw one
- The Klondike draw rule used on this site: one card at a time turns from the stock onto the waste. Also called turn one. See: Klondike.
- Draw three
- The harder Klondike draw rule, where up to three cards turn onto the waste at a time and only the top one is playable. Also called turn three.
- Empty column
- A tableau column with no cards. In Klondike only a king may fill it, in Spider and FreeCell any card or run may, and in all three it is one of the most useful resources on the table. See: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell.
- Face-down card
- A card whose value is hidden. Klondike and Spider start with many of them in the tableau; FreeCell, Pyramid and TriPeaks have none in play.
- Face-up card
- A card whose rank and suit you can see. It can be played if nothing covers it and the rules allow the move.
- Foundation
- A pile built from ace up to king in one suit. Klondike and FreeCell have four of them, and the game is won when each holds thirteen cards. See: Klondike, FreeCell.
- Free card
- In Pyramid and TriPeaks, a card with no other card covering it. Only free cards can be paired or played. See: Pyramid, TriPeaks.
- Free cell
- The full name of a cell, the one-card parking spot in FreeCell. The number of empty free cells sets how long a run can move. See: FreeCell.
- Hint
- A suggestion that highlights a legal move. It does not judge whether the move is good, and using it marks the game as played with help in your own stats.
- King
- The highest card of a suit, with a value of 13. It is the only card that can fill an empty Klondike column, and in Pyramid it leaves the table alone. See: Klondike, Pyramid.
- Move
- One action counted by the page: playing a card or a run, drawing from the stock, or dealing in Spider. Moves you undo are taken back out of the count.
- Pair
- In Pyramid, two free cards whose values add up to 13, removed together. The pairs are ace and queen, 2 and jack, 3 and 10, 4 and 9, 5 and 8, and 6 and 7. See: Pyramid.
- Peak
- One of the three overlapping triangles of cards in TriPeaks. Clearing all 28 peak cards wins the game. See: TriPeaks.
- Pyramid
- A solitaire in which seven rows of cards are cleared by removing kings alone and pairs that add up to 13. Also the shape of its layout. See: Pyramid.
- Rank
- A card's value from ace to king, regardless of suit. There are thirteen ranks and four cards of each in a standard deck.
- Recycle
- To turn the waste over to make a new stock. In Klondike you can do it as often as you like and the stock order stays the same; in Pyramid you can do it once; TriPeaks never allows it. See: Klondike, Pyramid, TriPeaks.
- Redeal
- Another name for the single recycle that Pyramid allows. It gives you a second pass through the stock in the same order as the first. See: Pyramid.
- Row
- A horizontal level of the Pyramid or of a TriPeaks peak. Cards in a lower row cover the cards above them. See: Pyramid, TriPeaks.
- Run
- A group of cards in descending order lying on top of each other. In Klondike and FreeCell the colors alternate, and in Spider only a same-suit run moves as a unit. See: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell.
- Safe move
- A foundation move that cannot cost you a landing spot later. In Klondike, aces and twos are always safe, and a higher card is safe once both foundations of the opposite color have reached the rank just below it. See: Klondike.
- Sequence
- Cards in consecutive ranks lying in order. On this site the word covers runs and the ace-to-king order of a foundation.
- Solver
- A program that sees every card of a deal, including face-down ones, and searches for a winning line. We use one offline to check deals, and the page tells you when a deal was not checked.
- Stock
- The face-down pile of cards you draw from. Klondike, Pyramid and TriPeaks start with 24 cards in it, and in Spider it is five batches of ten. See: Klondike, Pyramid, TriPeaks, Spider.
- Streak
- In the daily deal, the number of consecutive UTC days on which you finished a deal. In TriPeaks, a count of peak cards cleared in a row without drawing. See: Daily deal, TriPeaks.
- Stuck
- A game with no legal move left and no way to get one, such as an empty stock with no matching free card. Undo can take you back to a choice.
- Suit
- One of the four groups of cards: spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. Spades and clubs are black, hearts and diamonds red.
- Supermove
- A multi-card move in FreeCell made of many single moves through free cells and empty columns. The game checks that there is room and performs it in one step. See: FreeCell.
- Tableau
- The main area of columns on which you build, as opposed to the foundations, the stock and the waste. See: Klondike, Spider, FreeCell.
- Talon
- An older name for the stock, mostly found in printed rule books. On this site we say stock.
- Turn one
- The same as draw one: a single card turns from the stock to the waste with each draw. See: Klondike.
- Turn three
- The same as draw three: cards come off the stock in groups of up to three, with only the top card of the group playable.
- Undo
- A button that takes back your last move. It has no limit here, and redo brings the move back.
- Waste
- The face-up pile next to the stock where drawn cards land. Only its top card can be played; in Pyramid it can also pair with a free card. See: Klondike, Pyramid, TriPeaks.
- Winnable
- Describes a deal in which at least one sequence of moves reaches a win. A winnable deal can still be hard, because the solver sees cards that you cannot.
- Winnable pool
- The set of deals that our solver checked and replayed to confirm a win. The default deals on each game page come from it, which is why they lean toward easier wins than a random shuffle.
Rules for each game are on how to play. For decision rules, read the strategy guides for Klondike, Spider, FreeCell and Pyramid.