The rules of Solitaire Klondike

Setup

A deck of 52 cards, without jokers, is shuffled. 7 columns of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 cards are dealt, making 28 cards: only the last card in each column is face up, and the other 21 are face down. The remaining 24 cards form the face-down stock. Beside it are the empty waste and 4 empty foundations.

Allowed moves

• On a column: a card goes on a face-up card of the opposite color (red on black, black on red) and one rank higher. A 7 of hearts goes on an 8 of spades or clubs.
• A sequence as a unit: a face-up card in a column moves together with all the cards stacked on it, with no limit on their number. Only the first card in the sequence needs to fit the destination column.
• From the waste pile: only the top card can be played, onto a column or its foundation.
• A hidden card that is uncovered turns over by itself and becomes playable.

Ranks run from ace (lowest) to king: ace, 2 through 10, jack, queen, king.

The empty column

An empty column accepts only a king, alone or with the cards placed on it. No other card can go there, even to uncover a hidden card: the Examples page shows this refusal in a real game.

The foundations

Each foundation takes a single suit: first the ace, then the 2, the 3 and so on up to the king, one card at a time. In the app, each suit has a fixed position (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs); when you drag a card, the app finds the correct foundation automatically.

The stock and the passes

Tap the stock to turn cards over onto the waste. The app offers two draw options, available in the New Game window:

• Draw 1 ("Easy"): one card at a time; each card of the stock can be played in turn.
• Draw 3 ("Hard"): three cards at a time, fanned out on the waste pile; only the last one can be played, and the next one becomes available once you have played it.

When the stock is empty: with Normal scoring, a tap returns the entire waste to the stock, face down, and you start again, with unlimited passes. With Vegas scoring, the waste cannot be recycled: only one pass through the stock is allowed, whether playing Draw 1 or Draw 3.

The end of the game

The game is won when all 52 cards are on the foundations. The app does not declare a loss: when no useful moves remain, you undo moves or start a new game.

What the app adds

These points are specific to the Solitaire Klondike app; other versions of the game score differently.

• No automatic play: no cards move to the foundations on their own, and the game does not finish automatically. Tapping a top card sends it to its foundation when possible; two quick taps then look for a place on the tableau (the longest column first, then an empty column for a king). You can also drag the cards.
• Taking back from a foundation: the top card of a foundation can be taken back by dragging and placed on the tableau, without gaining or losing points.
• Undo: the last 100 actions; undoing removes the points from the undone move.
• Game code: each deal has a code (for example KL1-D1N-AAAAAAG) that reproduces it exactly, including its draw and scoring settings. See the FAQ.

Scoring in the app

Normal scoring

The score starts at 0 and never falls below 0: recycling the waste early in the game therefore costs fewer than 100 points. A game won without taking cards back from a foundation always earns 625 points for the 52 cards on the foundations and the 21 cards turned face up, plus 5 for each card moved from the waste, minus the penalties for recycling the waste.

Vegas scoring

There is no lower limit: the score remains negative while at most 10 cards are on the foundations, and becomes positive with the 11^th. A game won without taking cards back from a foundation ends at +$208. The app displays the score in dollars: “+$208”, “$0” or “-$52”.