Klondike Turn 3 on solitaire-online.nz: working the three-card stock
Klondike Turn 3 is classic Klondike with one change that alters everything: the stock turns over three cards at a time, and only the top one of the three is yours to play. The tableau, the foundations and the building rules are exactly the same as in ordinary Klondike. What changes is which cards you can reach, and when.
This page is a hands-on playbook: how the three-card turn really works, how to plan your trips through the stock, and a worked example you can follow. For the win rates and the full study, head to our Solitaire Turn 3 page.
What happens when you tap the stock
After the deal, 24 cards sit in the stock. Each tap turns the next three onto the waste, but only the top card of the three is playable. Play it, and the card beneath becomes available. Cannot play it? Tap again, and three more land on top.
When the stock is empty, the waste flips back to become the stock again, in the same order. On this site there is no limit on how many times you can do that.
The key idea: the stock is a fixed pattern until you play from it
If you never take a card from the waste, every pass shows you exactly the same cards: the 3rd, 6th, 9th and so on, down to the 24th. That is only 8 of the 24 cards. The other 16 stay out of reach, pass after pass.
The moment you play one card from the waste, the groups of three shift by one from that point on, and different cards come to the top on the next pass. That shift is the main tool you have in Turn 3.
Which cards can you reach on each pass?
| What you did on the last pass | What the next pass shows you |
|---|---|
| Played nothing from the waste | Exactly the same 8 cards as before. Unless the tableau has changed, going round again gains nothing. |
| Played one card from the waste | Every card after that point moves up one place, so a new set of cards comes to the top. |
| Played two or three cards in a row | A bigger shift, and often several fresh cards. This is how stuck games come unstuck. |
That is why a pass with no waste play and no tableau change is a warning sign. If the next pass will look identical, you need to change something first.
Five techniques for the three-card stock
1. Walk the stock once before committing
On your first pass, mostly look. Note which of the 8 reachable cards you need and which you do not, and play only the ones that clearly help. Treat the first trip as a scouting run.
2. Play from the waste when it shifts the pattern usefully
Taking a waste card is not only about that card. It also re-shuffles what the next pass will offer. If a card you badly need is buried just below a reachable one, playing the reachable one can bring it within reach next time.
3. Sometimes hold back
The reverse is also true. If the current pattern already gives you the card you are waiting for later in the stock, playing an earlier waste card can push it out of reach. Before taking a card, ask what it does to the rest of the pass.
4. Work the tableau between passes
Every hidden card you uncover changes what the stock cards can land on. Before starting another pass, make every useful tableau move, so more of the stock cards have somewhere to go.
5. Count your passes
In our study, winning Turn 3 games used on average 3.8 passes through the stock, against 2.3 at Turn 1. If you are well past that and nothing has changed for a whole pass, use Undo to try a different order, or deal again.
One pass, move by move
Imagine the start of a pass. You tap the stock and see 5♥, J♣, 9♠, with 9♠ on top. Your tableau has a red 10 at the bottom of one column.
- Play the 9♠ onto the red 10. Now J♣ is the top waste card.
- No red Queen is showing, so the J♣ stays. You tap again.
- Because you took the 9♠, the stock is now one card out of step with the last pass. The next three cards are different from last time, and a card that was hidden in the middle of a group may now be on top.
- Suppose the new top card is the 8♥. It goes onto your 9♠. The pattern shifts again.
- Carry on to the end of the stock, then flip. The J♣ is still in the waste pile, and it will come round again. If a red Queen turns up in the tableau before then, the Jack has a home.
The lesson: one waste play changed which cards came up for the rest of the pass, and the next pass.
What to expect from a session
Turn 3 is harder than Turn 1, and the difference is large. Our simple computer player, which never looks ahead or undoes a move, won 10.6% of Turn 3 deals against 42.3% at Turn 1. Its wins took about 111 moves each. A thoughtful human with Undo does better, but expect plenty of losses and do not take them personally.
The full breakdown, including how many Turn 3 deals are impossible even with perfect play, is on our Solitaire Turn 3 page.
Turn 3 on a phone or tablet
On a small screen it helps to zoom in so the waste and the columns are easy to read. Tapping the stock and then a card's destination is quicker than dragging on a phone. The game records your wins, time and moves, and you can turn the sound off for late-night play.
How we did the research, step by step
The three figures on this page come from our September 2026 study. The detailed method is on our Solitaire Turn 3 page; this is the summary.
- Same engine, checked. We compared the code behind this page with the code behind Solitaire Turn 3. They use the same Klondike game, turning three cards with unlimited passes, so the same figures apply to both.
- Rebuilt as a program. We wrote the rules into code. At Turn 3 the player can only take the top card of each three-card turn, just as on screen.
- Numbered deals. 10,000 shuffles from numbered seeds, so anyone repeating the test gets the same deals.
- A simple player. It sees only face-up cards, never undoes a move, and gives up after a full pass with no progress. Its 10.6% is a floor.
- Counting. For every winning game we recorded the moves (including taps on the stock) and the number of passes.
- Error bars. The 10.6% has a 95% range of 10.0% to 11.2%; the 3.8 passes, 3.7 to 3.9.
The technical side
We wrote the simulation in Python 3.11 with nothing beyond the standard library. klondike.py holds the rules and the player, which follows a fixed priority list: foundation plays, then moves that expose hidden cards, then Kings into empty columns, then waste plays, then drawing. runner.py hands the deals out to many worker processes at once with Python's multiprocessing, so 10,000 deals take seconds rather than hours, and the ranges are Wilson score intervals. We used Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, to help write and check the code and to draft this page. None of the numbers came from the AI: they come from running the program, and the team compared the wider results with the published study by Blake & Gent (2026).
By Admin, solitaire-online.nz. Study date: 18 September 2026.
Short answers before your next deal
Why is only one of the three cards playable?
That is the rule that makes Turn 3 what it is. The other two cards become playable one at a time as you use the cards above them.
If I play nothing, will the next pass be the same?
Yes. The same eight cards come to the top every time, unless you take a card from the waste.
Is this page a different game from Solitaire Turn 3?
No, it is the same game and the same rules. This page is a playing guide; the Solitaire Turn 3 page has the numbers.
Can I switch to turning one card?
Yes. Klondike Solitaire turns one card at a time and is a gentler place to practise.
What is a good next step after Turn 3?
For another game with a stock to manage, try Forty Thieves, or browse every game on the games page.