Games

Klondike Strategy

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To win more Klondike deals, open the hidden cards first: take any move that turns a face-down card over, and draw from the stock only when nothing on the table helps. Six rules, in order, turn that habit into a check you can run before every move.

Klondike rewards a small set of habits. Most lost deals slip away through a dozen small moves that each looked fine. This guide is written for the draw-one game on the Klondike page, and it assumes you know the rules. Unfamiliar words are explained in the glossary.

What a winnable deal means here

Every default deal on this site comes from a pool that our own solver checked. The solver sees all 52 cards, including the face-down ones, and it found at least one line that wins. You do not see those cards, so a winnable deal can still be hard. In our own measurements, the solver finished a win on roughly 82 to 84 percent of random draw-one deals within a time cap. The rest were either lost or still undecided when the cap ran out. Treat those figures as a description of our tools, not as a law of the game.

The practical lesson is simple. When you get stuck on a pool deal, a way through existed. Try the undo button and look for the branch you skipped.

Decision rules, in order

Check these from the top each turn and take the first one that applies.

  1. Play any move that turns a face-down card over. The tableau holds 21 hidden cards at the start. Until they are open, you are playing blind, and information is worth more than tidiness.
  2. If two moves turn over a card, pick the column with more hidden cards. A column of five hidden cards is a bigger prize than a column of one.
  3. Prefer a move inside the tableau to a move from the waste. A waste card can wait for its turn. A face-down card is not reached by waiting.
  4. Send a card to the foundation only when it is safe. Aces and twos are always safe. A higher card is safe once both foundations of the opposite color have reached the rank just below it. The game uses the same rule when it plays for you.
  5. Draw from the stock only when nothing above helps. Each draw is free, but a draw also commits you to seeing cards in a fixed order.
  6. Do not empty a column unless a king is ready. Only a king, with its run, can fill an empty column.

Worked examples

The red 6 and the lone 7

A red 6 has just come up on the waste. It fits on a black 7 in column 6, which is the end of a long run. Another black 7 stands alone in column 2, the only face-up card above three hidden ones, and a red 8 in column 5 could take it. Play the lone 7 onto the 8 first. Column 2 now shows a new card, and the 6 can still go on either 7. Dropping the 6 on the run in column 6 instead digs nothing, and it buries that run a card deeper. When two plans look equal, the one that digs is the one to play.

The king in the waste

A red king turns up in the waste while column 4 is empty. Before you play it, check whether a black queen is also sitting free on the table. If it is, the king lets you move that queen and her run next. If no queen is free, the king still goes down, because an empty column with no king in it is dead space and the stock will not hand you another king on request.

Keeping the colors balanced

Suppose the black eights of both suits are already on the foundations and you are holding two red sevens with nowhere to go. Red sevens need a black eight. With both gone, they have no landing spot on the table, and every red seven now has to wait for the foundation to reach it. Before you send a card up, ask which cards depend on it as a home. This is the main reason the safe rule in step 4 exists.

Reading the stock

With draw-one play, the whole stock is 24 cards, and it comes around again in the same order when you recycle the waste. Recycling is unlimited here. That means the first pass through the stock is a scouting trip. Note which cards you saw and what they were waiting for.

On the second pass, the order is identical. Say a red 9 passed by on the first pass with no black 10 to land on. If you have uncovered a black 10 since, you know exactly when that 9 will return, and you can leave the 10 open for it. Plan a pass ahead rather than reacting card by card.

Common mistakes

Endgame

Once every hidden card is open, the game changes from discovery to arithmetic. Most remaining decisions are about order: which suit to bring up first, and which run to dismantle.

Start by counting the lowest missing rank in each suit. If the club 3 is buried under a long run, the whole club foundation waits on it. Dig that run out first, even if it means holding two other suits back for a few moves.

Keep one empty column as long as you can. It is the only place a full run can wait while you reach a card beneath it. If the stock is still not empty, remember that recycling resets the order, so a card you need may be only one pass away.

Checklist before each move

Frequently asked questions

Should I always play aces to the foundation straight away?

Yes. An ace has nothing to build on, so it is never needed as a landing spot, and a safe two follows the same logic.

Is it better to empty a column or keep face-down cards covered?

Open the hidden cards first. An empty column helps only when a king is available to fill it.

Does draw three change this advice?

The decision rules carry over, but the stock behaves differently because cards come in groups. The draw-three page has its own rules text and a checked pool of deals; this guide covers draw one.

How can I tell a dead end from a hard position?

If the stock has gone around twice and nothing new became playable, the position is probably dead. Use undo to go back to the last time you had a choice.

Is there a score to chase?

Not in this version. The page shows time and moves, and a win is the goal.

Keep reading

Play the Klondike game, read the rules step by step, or look up a term in the glossary. For a game with all cards visible, try the FreeCell strategy guide.