How to play Solitaire

What solitaire is

Solitaire, also called patience, is a card game you play on your own. The best-known version is Klondike: one deck of 52 cards, seven piles on the table, and a simple goal. Move every card up to four foundations, one for each suit, in order from Ace to King. A game takes a few minutes, every deal is different, and the decisions you make along the way decide whether a deal comes out.

Playing solitaire on AllFun

AllFun Solitaire is classic Klondike. Choose Draw 1 or Draw 3, and choose between Winnable deals, which our solver has already proven can be won, and Random deals, where some cannot. The Daily deal is one winnable Draw 1 deal a day, the same for everyone: win it for a crown and build a streak on the calendar.

Tap a card to send it to the best place, or drag it where you want it. Hint shows a good next move, with three free each deal, and Undo takes moves back. Once every card is face up, Finish sends them all home for you. If you hold your phone in your left hand, the Left-handed setting moves the stock and waste to the left. Your game saves as you play, so you can close the page and carry on later.

The rules

The layout

Twenty-eight cards are dealt into seven piles: one card in the first pile, two in the second, and so on up to seven. Only the top card of each pile is face up. The other 24 cards form the stock. Above the piles are four empty foundations.

Moving cards

• On the piles, build down in alternating colours: a red 7 on a black 8, then a black 6 on the red 7.
• A run of face-up cards in order can move together onto another pile.
• When you uncover a face-down card, it turns face up.
• Only a King, or a run that starts with a King, can go into an empty pile.
• Foundations build up by suit, from Ace to King. Any Ace can start an empty foundation.

The stock

When you need a new card, tap the stock to turn cards onto the waste: one at a time in Draw 1, three at a time in Draw 3, where only the top one can be played. When the stock is empty, tap it to turn the waste over and go through it again. AllFun allows unlimited passes. Play the Draw 3 version.

Scoring

A card moved to a foundation scores 10, a card from the waste to the piles 5, and turning a hidden card over 5. Moving a card back down from a foundation costs 15, and in Draw 1 each new pass through the stock costs 100. Win a deal that took at least 30 seconds and you also get a time bonus: the faster, the bigger.

Six tips that win more deals

1. Uncover hidden cards first. The face-down cards are what block you. Prefer moves that free them, especially in the longest piles.
2. Do not rush to empty a pile. An empty pile is only useful if you have a King ready to move into it.
3. Choose your King carefully. If a red Queen is waiting, a black King is the better one to move to an empty space.
4. Keep low cards on the table for a while. A black 4 on the piles may be the only home for a red 3 you need to move.
5. Play from the piles before the stock. Each time you go through the stock, you learn less and spend more.
6. Start with Draw 1. Draw 3 hides more cards and wins less often; switch when Draw 1 feels easy.

A short history

Patience games first appear in print in the late eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth whole books of them were popular as a quiet pastime for one. Klondike is usually said to take its name from the Klondike gold rush of the late 1890s. It became the best-known solitaire of all when personal computers began to come with a copy of it.

Solitaire FAQ