Printable Solitaire (Klondike) rules

Solitaire (Klondike) in one page

1 player · 1 deck · table space

Deal 28 cards into 7 piles, with 1 to 7 cards and only the top card of each face up, and keep the other 24 as a stock. Build the piles down in alternating colors (a red 6 on a black 7), turn cards from the stock one or three at a time, and move aces and then cards in suit order up to the four foundation piles. You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations.

In brief

• 7 piles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 cards (28 total), top card face up
• Remaining 24 cards = stock
• Tableau: build down, alternating red and black
• Foundations: build up by suit, ace to king
• Move face-up sequences as a unit
• Turn face-down cards when uncovered
• Empty column: king only
• Draw 1 (easier) or draw 3 (harder)
• Vegas: pay $52, earn $5 per foundation card
• Win: all 52 cards on the foundations

Setup

1. Shuffle a 52-card deck. Deal a row of 7 piles from left to right: 1 card in the first pile, 2 in the second, and so on up to 7 cards in the seventh. That uses 28 cards.
2. The easy way to deal: lay 7 cards in a row with the first one face up and the rest face down. Then deal a row of 6 starting on the second pile, turning its first card face up, and continue until the seventh pile has 6 face-down cards and 1 face-up card on top.
3. Place the remaining 24 cards face down above the layout. This is the stock. You will turn cards from it onto a face-up waste pile beside it.
4. Leave space above the tableau for four foundation piles, one for each suit. They start empty.
5. Decide before you start whether you'll turn the stock one card at a time (draw one, easier) or three at a time (draw three, harder), and how many passes through the stock you allow.

On your turn

1. There are no turns in the usual sense. You keep making legal moves until you win or run out of moves.
2. Any ace that becomes available goes to its own foundation. Then build each foundation up in the same suit: 2, 3, and so on to the king.
3. On the tableau, build down in alternating colors. You can put a black 9 on a red 10, then a red 8 on the black 9.
4. You can move a whole face-up sequence from one pile to another as a unit, as long as the card at the bottom of the sequence fits where you are putting it.
5. When you move the last face-up card off a pile, turn the next face-down card face up. If a pile becomes completely empty, only a king (or a sequence starting with a king) may go there.
6. When you are stuck, turn cards from the stock onto the waste pile. The top waste card is always available to play to the tableau or a foundation. In draw-three, you flip three cards together but can only use the top one, and you reach the next only after playing that one.
7. When the stock is empty, turn the waste pile over, without shuffling, to make a new stock, if your rules allow another pass.

Scoring

Winning

You win when all four foundations are complete from ace to king, all 52 cards. With scoring, you compare your point total or your Vegas bankroll against your earlier games. Wikipedia puts the odds of winning between about 18% and 43%, depending on the rules and how carefully you play, so losing plenty of deals is normal.