Online Klondike Solitaire Game

A buried Ace cannot start a foundation until the cards covering it have moved. In Klondike solitaire, uncovering hidden cards is part of sorting a standard 52-card deck into four complete suit sequences. This one-player game is won when every card reaches a foundation, not merely when the seven columns look orderly.

Tableau

The seven working columns, initially holding one to seven cards from left to right. Each column begins with only its exposed end card face up.

Foundations

Four destination piles, one for each suit. Each begins with an Ace and grows through 2 to 10, Jack, Queen and King.

Stock and waste

The undealt cards form the face-down stock. Drawing turns cards into the face-up waste pile, where only the top card is available to play.

The tableau builds down in alternating colors, while foundations build up within a single suit. Hearts and diamonds are red, while clubs and spades are black. For example, a red 9 can go on a black 10, followed by a black 8 on that 9. A foundation containing the 7 of hearts needs the 8 of hearts next, not the 8 of diamonds.

A correctly ordered face-up run can move together, allowing several cards to leave a column in one move and uncover the card beneath them. An empty column accepts only a King or a run beginning with a King. A non-King cannot use that space as a temporary holding place while other cards are rearranged.

Advancing a foundation also changes the choices available in the tableau. A black 7 can provide a landing place for a red 6. Sending that 7 to its foundation removes that landing place, even though it brings the suit closer to completion.

Drawing one card at a time makes each newly drawn card available in turn. Drawing three makes the last card turned the playable one, rather than giving three independent choices. The draw rule and the number of permitted stock passes affect which cards can be reached. Shuffled deals are not guaranteed to be winnable.

How to Use This Tool:

The draw and stock-pass choices stay fixed throughout an attempt.

1. Choose Draw and Stock passes. The defaults are One card and Unlimited. A limited pass count includes the first trip through the stock.
2. Enter a Deal seed or keep klondike-1, then select Start deal. A seed must contain 1 to 96 characters after surrounding spaces are removed. If Start deal is disabled, replace a blank or space-only seed with non-sensitive text.
3. Select a face-up tableau card or the top waste card, then click or tap a highlighted destination. Selecting a tableau card includes the valid run beneath it. When the feedback says No legal destination, choose another card or draw from the stock.
   Use Tab and Enter to operate cards and buttons. D draws and P pauses only when the card table itself has focus, not when a card or control has focus.
4. Click Stock to draw. When it is empty and another pass is allowed, click once to recycle the waste, then again to turn cards from the replenished stock.
5. Choose Pause to keep your place while the page stays open. Resume continues from that position, while Restart deal starts the same cards and rules again. Switching away from the page also pauses play.
6. Complete the four foundations or choose End deal to stop. The summary offers Replay same seed for another attempt, New seed for another shuffled deal under the same rules, and Change setup to return to editable settings.

Interpreting Results:

Home during play and Cards home in the summary count the cards currently in the foundations. The winning message, All foundations complete, requires all 52 cards to be home. Deal ended means the attempt was stopped, not that the deal was proved unwinnable. Exhausting the stock does not automatically end play. Once either summary appears, that position cannot be resumed or undone.

Hint checks face-up tableau choices before the top waste card. It does not search for returns from foundations, and it skips a whole King-led column whose only destinations are empty columns. A suggested move is legal, not a plan for winning. When No forward move found appears, check the stock and top foundation cards, or use an available Undo.

Local best records the fewest moves in a completed win for the same draw and stock-pass settings. It can come from a different seed, so it is not a best score for the current deal specifically. Compare attempts with the same seed and rules when judging different lines of play. There is no time-based score.

Technical Details:

Card access determines which moves can be considered. A tableau selection includes the chosen face-up card and every card below it, all in descending rank and alternating colors. Only the top card of the waste or a foundation is available. Face-down cards and covered waste or foundation cards cannot move independently.

Legal card moves

The first card of a moving run must fit its destination. Ace is the lowest rank, and sequences do not wrap from Ace to King.

When a transfer uncovers the next card in a tableau column, that card turns face up automatically. No separate flip action is needed. Returning a card from a foundation can restore a useful tableau destination, but it also reduces the number of cards currently home.

Deal order and stock passes

The initial deal puts 28 cards into the seven tableau columns, with seven face-up cards and 21 face-down cards. The other 24 cards form the stock, and the waste and foundations start empty. A seed fixes this initial shuffled order. Changing the draw or pass rule does not change the starting cards, although it changes how they can be reached during play.

Each draw turns one or three cards into the waste. If fewer than three remain in a three-card draw, only those remaining cards are turned. The last card turned is playable first. Playing it exposes the next waste card, including a card left from an earlier draw.

An empty stock can be recycled only when cards remain in the waste and another pass is allowed. Recycling preserves the order of the remaining cards, clears the waste and increases the current pass by one. It does not draw a card until the next draw action. Removing waste cards can change which cards finish on top of later three-card groups, even though recycling never shuffles.

Move-count formula

Moves, shown as Moves (including undo) in the summary, counts successful actions rather than individual cards moved.

M is the displayed move count. D counts draws from a nonempty stock, R counts recycles, T counts card or stack transfers, and U counts successful undos. These totals include actions that were later undone.

A three-card draw counts once, as does moving a whole valid run. Selecting cards, requesting hints, pausing, resuming, ending a deal and automatically turning an exposed card add no moves. Rejected moves leave both the cards and the count unchanged.

Repeated Undo can step back through up to 100 retained board changes, restoring card positions, face-up or face-down status, and the stock pass. It never reduces the move count. At the start of a deal, one three-card draw followed by Undo restores the cards but leaves Moves at 2. Restarting or replaying begins a new count at zero.

Privacy Notes:

Card moves and rule checks take place in your browser. Local best-win records store a move count and deal seed for each draw and stock-pass combination. Use non-sensitive text for a seed because it is displayed with the deal and may be saved with a best win. They do not store the unfinished card position or its undo history, so reloading or closing the page does not provide a way to resume that position.

A browser-storage warning means a local best record could not be read or saved. Play can continue, but the record may not be available after a reload.

These deals are for play and practice. Results and local best records have no monetary value.

Worked Examples:

References:

• Solitaire, Bicycle Cards.