What you need
- One standard deck of 52 cards. Take out the jokers and any advertising or rules cards. A missing card makes the game impossible to finish, so count the deck if it has been sitting in a drawer.
- Room for two rows. The main row needs space for seven piles side by side, with room for them to grow downward as you play. Above it goes a shorter row for the stock, the waste and the four foundations.
- A good shuffle. A won game of solitaire leaves the deck sorted by suit and rank, and a few quick shuffles will not undo that. The advice that a deck needs about seven riffle shuffles to be well mixed goes back to the mathematicians Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis and their 1992 study of the riffle shuffle.
The deal, round by round
The traditional deal, as Bicycle describes it, goes across the row again and again. Each round starts one pile further to the right with a card face up, and gives every pile after it one card face down:
- Deal one card face up to make the first pile on the left. Then deal one card face down to each of the six places to its right.
- Go back to the second pile and deal one card face up on it. Then deal one card face down on each of the piles to its right, from the third to the seventh.
- Keep going the same way: each new round puts a face-up card on the next pile and a face-down card on every pile after it.
- The deal ends when the seventh pile gets its face-up card on top of six face-down ones.
| Round | Face up | Face down |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pile 1 | Piles 2 to 7 |
| 2 | Pile 2 | Piles 3 to 7 |
| 3 | Pile 3 | Piles 4 to 7 |
| 4 | Pile 4 | Piles 5 to 7 |
| 5 | Pile 5 | Piles 6 and 7 |
| 6 | Pile 6 | Pile 7 |
| 7 | Pile 7 | None |
Seven rounds use 28 cards. The 24 that are left go face down in a single pile above the first piles of the row: this is the stock.
A quicker way that gives the same layout
You can also deal pile by pile instead: one card for the first pile, two for the second, and so on, turning the top card of each pile face up at the end. The finished table has the same shape. Since the deck is shuffled, either order gives a random game; the round-by-round deal is only the custom.
What the finished layout looks like
Check your table against these numbers before the first move:
- Pile 1 has one card, face up. Pile 7 has seven: six face down and one face up.
- The tableau holds 28 cards: 21 face down and 7 face up, one on each pile.
- The stock holds the other 24, all face down.
- The waste and the four foundations are empty.
Where the stock, waste and foundations go
A common arrangement puts the stock at the top left, above the first pile. The waste pile grows beside it as you turn cards. The four foundations sit on the right of the same row, over the last four piles. The exact places do not matter for the rules. What matters is that the waste stays face up, so you always know which card is on top, and that the foundations have room, one per suit.
The foundations start empty. Do not set the aces out in advance: an ace goes up only when it turns up in play, from the tableau or the waste.
Decide the rules before the first card
Klondike is played in several ways, and it is easier to agree on them at the start than in the middle of a game. Three choices make the biggest difference:
- Draw one or draw three. Do you turn the stock one card at a time, or three? See what changes between Turn 1 and Turn 3.
- Passes. May the waste be turned over and dealt again without limit, three times, or not at all?
- Foundations. May a card come back down from a foundation to the tableau?
The rules of Klondike go through each of these and the rest of the game.
Mistakes that are easy to make
- Turning every card face up. Only the top card of each pile is face up. The hidden cards are the whole difficulty of the game.
- Building the piles the wrong way round. The short pile and the long pile can sit on either side; a mirrored layout plays just the same. What matters is one pile of each size from one to seven.
- Forgetting the last face-up card. If you deal pile by pile, it is easy to leave a pile with no face-up card. Turn its top card before you start.
- Playing during the deal. An ace or a useful card that appears while you deal stays where it lands. Moves begin when all 28 cards are out.
- Peeking at the stock. Leaving the stock face down and untouched until you need it is part of the game.
On a computer none of this is needed: the program shuffles, deals and checks every move for you.
Play Klondike now
Deal a game in your browser: Turn 1 Klondike (draw one) or Turn 3 Klondike (draw three).
Read next
- How to play solitaire — the rules of Klondike from the deal to the last king.
- Solitaire terms — a glossary, from tableau and foundation to talon and redeal.
- Solitaire strategy — habits that win more deals, from the opening to the stock.
Sources
- How to play Solitaire, Bicycle Cards
- Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to Its Lair, Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis, The Annals of Applied Probability, 1992
- Klondike (solitaire), Wikipedia