Klondike solitaire rules, draw one vs draw three, and how to win more deals

Klondike is the game most people mean when they say solitaire: seven columns, four foundations, one deck. It came preinstalled on a generation of computers, and most of us learned the rules by watching rather than reading. That is why so many players lose deals they could have won.

Here are the rules in full, what the settings change, and the habits that win more deals.

The setup

A standard 52-card deck, no jokers. Seven columns are dealt from left to right: one card in the first, two in the second, up to seven in the last. Only the top card of each column is face up. That uses 28 cards. The other 24 go face down into the stock.

Above the columns sit four empty foundations, one for each suit.

The rules

Foundations build up by suit, from ace to king. An ace starts a foundation, the two of the same suit goes on it, and so on.
Columns build down in alternating colors. A red nine goes on a black ten, a black eight on a red nine.
You can move a whole ordered run between columns, as long as its top card fits the new spot.
When you move the last face-up card off a column, the card under it turns face up.
Only a king, or a run headed by a king, can go into an empty column.
When no move on the table helps, draw from the stock. The top card of the waste is playable.
When the stock runs out, the waste turns over and becomes the stock again.

You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations.

Draw one or draw three

This is the setting that changes the game most. Some versions call it turn one and turn three.

In draw one, each tap on the stock turns one card. You see every stock card on every pass, so the stock is a list you can plan around.

In draw three, each tap turns three cards and only the top one is playable. The other two stay buried until you play the one above them. Which cards you can reach changes every time the stock is recycled, depending on what you took out before. It is the harder mode, and it rewards remembering the order of the stock.

Some rule sets also limit how often you can recycle the stock. Classic Vegas scoring allows one pass in draw one and three passes in draw three. Most mobile versions, ours included, let you recycle freely.

How many deals can be won

Not every deal. In draw one, solvers that can see every card estimate that roughly four deals in five can be won with perfect play. Solvitaire, a solver from the University of St Andrews published in 2019, put the figure near 82 percent. You do not see every card, so even a careful player wins fewer, and draw three is harder still.

So a lost deal is not always your fault. Some deals are dead from the first card, and no amount of skill fixes them. That is worth knowing before you blame yourself, and it is why some games deal only winnable deals.

Seven habits that win more deals

Turn over face-down cards first. A move that reveals a hidden card is almost always worth more than one that does not. Hidden cards are the whole problem.
Work on the longest columns. The column with six hidden cards is where the deal is decided. Clearing a short column early feels like progress and rarely is.
Do not empty a column you cannot fill. An empty column only takes a king. If no king is ready, the space does nothing, and you may have spent moves you needed elsewhere.
Choose your king. When two kings could go into one empty column, pick the one whose color fits the queens you can reach.
Do not rush cards to the foundations. Aces and twos, yes, always. Higher cards can be more useful on the table, where they hold a place for the next lower card of the other color.
Draw only when the table is stuck. Make every table move first, then turn to the stock. In draw three this matters even more, because playing a waste card shifts which cards you see on the next pass.
Use undo to look, not just to fix. If the game allows it, undo lets you test a choice, see what it opens, and take it back.

When a deal is lost

A deal is usually lost when you have cycled the whole stock without finding a new move. Before you give up, check two things: a run you could split to free a buried card, and a foundation card you could bring back down to make room, if your version allows it.

If neither works, start a new deal. Two minutes is not much to lose.

Our Solitaire

Hopvera's first game is plain Klondike, called Solitaire. It is still in development and not in the store yet. Its page will carry the Google Play link on release day.

What it does differently: deals are winnable by default, each one checked by a solver in both draw one and draw three. Undo is free and unlimited. The game saves after every move and works offline from the first launch. The first release has no ads and no purchases. Today's deal gives everyone the same deal on the same date, and a quiet calendar marks the days you cleared, with no streak to lose.

If you play solitaire on breaks, see also what makes a game good for a short break. Questions about the rules or the game? Write to us.