Klondike Solitaire: the complete guide for players in Aotearoa
Klondike is the card game most New Zealanders mean when they say "Solitaire", or "Patience" if they learnt it from a grandparent. One pack of 52 cards, seven columns, and a quiet goal: move every card onto four piles, one for each suit, from Ace up to King. This page is our full guide to the game itself: where it came from, what every part of the table is called, exactly how cards move, and a walk through your first deal from start to finish.
If you are after odds and win rates, our Klondike page has the full set of numbers from the solitaire-online.nz study. Here we stick mostly to the game, with just a couple of figures to set expectations.
Klondike through the years, from Hoyle to your phone
Klondike is older than most people think. According to Wikipedia's article on the game, the first documented rules appeared in the 1907 edition of Hoyle's Games under the name "Seven-Card Klondike", and by 1913 the Official Rules of Card Games was calling it simply "Klondike".
Where the name came from is genuinely unknown. Some writers have linked it to the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s in Canada's Yukon, but the same article notes there is no firm evidence for that, so treat the story as a guess rather than a fact.
What is certain is how the game reached almost every home and office. Microsoft included it with Windows 3.0 in 1990 as Microsoft Solitaire, and for a whole generation "Solitaire" and "Klondike" became the same word. Today you do not need Windows at all: the version on this site runs in any modern browser, on a phone, tablet or computer.
Four areas to know before you deal
Every Klondike game uses the same four areas. Learning their names makes every guide, hint and tip easier to follow.
| Area | What it is | What you do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Tableau | Seven columns across the middle. The first holds one card, the second two, and so on up to seven. Only the bottom card of each column starts face up. | Build down in alternating colours and turn over hidden cards. |
| Foundations | Four empty spaces, one per suit. | Build each suit up from Ace to King. Filling all four wins the game. |
| Stock | The face-down pile left over after the deal: 24 cards. | Click or tap it to turn cards over. |
| Waste | The face-up pile next to the stock. | Its top card can be played to the tableau or a foundation. |
Those 28 tableau cards and 24 stock cards make up the full pack of 52.
Every rule, in plain words
Stacking cards down the columns
A face-up card can go onto another face-up card that is one rank higher and the opposite colour. A red 6 goes on a black 7; a black Jack goes on a red Queen. A tidy run of cards built this way can be moved together, as long as the top card of the run fits where it lands.
Turning over hidden cards
When you move the last face-up card off a column, the card underneath is turned face up and becomes playable. Uncovering these 21 hidden cards is most of what a game of Klondike is about.
Empty columns
Only a King, or a run that starts with a King, can go into an empty column. An empty column is valuable, but only when you have a King ready to move into it.
Turning cards from the stock
On this page the game turns one card at a time from the stock to the waste. When the stock runs out, the waste is turned back over to make a new stock, and you can go through it as many times as you like. If you prefer a sterner game that turns three at once, see our Klondike Turn 3 playbook.
Sending suits home
Aces start the foundations. After that, each foundation takes the next card of the same suit: Ace, 2, 3 and so on up to King. Cards can be brought back down from a foundation onto the tableau if you need them, which is occasionally the move that rescues a game.
Walking through a first deal
Here is how a sensible first deal tends to go. Follow along with a real deal on the home page if you like.
- Look before you touch anything. Check the seven face-up cards. Are there any Aces or 2s? Any card that fits on another? Any King sitting on top of hidden cards in a short column?
- Play Aces and 2s straight away. They never need to stay in the tableau, so send them up to the foundations.
- Make moves that uncover hidden cards. If two moves are possible, choose the one that frees a face-down card, and prefer the column with the most hidden cards left.
- Only then turn the stock. Turn one card, see whether it plays, and carry on. Do not play a card from the waste just because you can; ask whether it helps you reach a hidden card.
- Clear a column only with a King waiting. An empty column with no King to fill it does nothing for you.
- Go round the stock again. Each pass, the cards you can reach shift as you play from the waste.
- Let Auto Play finish. Once every hidden card is showing, the game is usually won. Auto Play sends the rest home for you.
If you get stuck, use Hint, or step back with Undo and try another order. Undo is unlimited here, and experimenting with it is one of the quickest ways to get better.
How long a game takes, and what to expect
Klondike suits a short break. In our study, a simple computer player that never looks ahead and never undoes a move won 42.3% of 10,000 Turn 1 deals, and its winning games took about 126 moves with a little over two trips through the stock. Real people do much the same: across 913,106 games on solitairex.io in the month before 16 July 2025, players won 44.8%.
So losing more often than you win is completely normal. The full odds, including how many deals can be won with perfect play, are on our Klondike page.
Wins, time and moves on solitaire-online.nz
The version on solitaire-online.nz records your wins, plus the time and moves for the game in front of you. There is no points system to learn and no leaderboard to worry about, so a slow, careful game counts the same as a quick one. Your win count is kept in your own browser.
Playing comfortably on any screen
- Tap or drag. Tap a card and then where it should go, or drag it if you prefer.
- Zoom. Make the cards bigger on a small phone or for tired eyes.
- Fullscreen and table colours. Clear away distractions and pick a table colour you find restful.
- Sound off. Handy on the bus or late at night.
It is free, with nothing to download and no account or email needed. Open the page and deal.
Klondike words in one place
- Alternating colours: red on black, black on red.
- Build: place a card on another in the tableau or on a foundation.
- Deal: the starting layout, or the act of laying it out.
- Foundation: the four piles built up by suit from Ace to King.
- Pass: one full trip through the stock.
- Patience: the traditional British and Kiwi name for solitaire games.
- Run: a sequence of face-up cards in alternating colours, descending in rank.
- Stock: the face-down pile you turn cards from.
- Tableau: the seven columns in the middle.
- Turn 1 / Turn 3: how many cards are turned from the stock at a time.
- Waste: the face-up pile the stock turns onto.
How we did the research, step by step
The two figures on this page come from the solitaire-online.nz study of September 2026. The full method and every number are on our Klondike page; here is the short version.
- Rules from the site. We read the game code behind this page. It is the same Klondike engine as the home page, turning one card at a time with unlimited passes through the stock.
- The game as a program. We rebuilt those rules in code and checked the computer player's moves against the rules over 2,000 games.
- Numbered deals. 10,000 shuffles, each from a numbered seed, so the test can be repeated deal for deal.
- A simple player. The computer player sees only the face-up cards and never undoes a move, so its 42.3% is a floor, not a ceiling.
- Real players for comparison. The 44.8% comes from solitairex.io's published figures for real people, not from our code.
- Error bars. The 95% range for the 42.3% is 41.3% to 43.3%: repeat the whole test and the answer would land in that band 19 times in 20.
The technical side
The simulation is written in Python 3.11 using only the standard library. The Klondike rules and player live in klondike.py, which works through a fixed priority list of moves (foundation plays first, then moves that uncover hidden cards, then the stock). A shared runner, runner.py, spreads the deals across the processor's cores with Python's multiprocessing, and the 95% ranges are Wilson score intervals. An AI assistant, Claude by Anthropic, helped us write and review the code and draft this guide. The figures come only from running the code, and we checked the wider results against the published study by Blake & Gent (2026).
By Admin, solitaire-online.nz. Study date: 18 September 2026.
Short answers before your next deal
Do "Solitaire" and "Klondike" mean the same thing?
Usually, yes. When people say Solitaire without naming a game, they almost always mean Klondike. Other solitaire games, such as FreeCell or Spider, have their own rules.
Where does the name Klondike come from?
Nobody knows for sure. A link to the Klondike Gold Rush is often suggested, but there is no firm evidence for it.
Can a King go into an empty column only if it is alone?
No. A King can bring the whole run built on it, so you can move a King with a Queen, Jack and more attached.
Can I cycle the stock as often as I want on solitaire-online.nz?
Not here. You can pass through it as often as you like.
Where can I try something a bit different?
Try Solitaire Double for a longer game with two packs, or browse every game on the games page.