Solitaire: rules and free online play

Goal of the game

In the end, all 52 cards should sit on the four foundations – one per suit (spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds), each built up from ace to king. The ace is the lowest card.

You get there through the seven columns and the stock: in the columns you rearrange cards, uncover face-down cards and make room until the right cards can go to the foundations in order.

Setup: seven columns and the stock

A standard 52-card deck is shuffled and dealt into seven columns: one card in the first, two in the second and so on up to seven in the seventh. The top card of each column is face up, the rest face down – 28 cards in all.

The remaining 24 cards form the face-down stock at the top left. Next to it, the waste builds up as you draw. The four foundations at the top right start empty. At Tavern Jack the game shuffles and deals for you.

Building in the columns

In the columns you build down in alternating colours: on a black 10 (spades or clubs) goes a red 9 (hearts or diamonds), then a black 8 and so on. Hearts or diamonds doesn't matter – only red or black counts.

You can also move whole face-up runs, as long as the bottom card of the run fits. A run of 9 of Hearts, 8 of Clubs, 7 of Hearts can move as a whole onto the 10 of Spades or the 10 of Clubs.

When a column has no face-up card left, the next face-down card turns over by itself. An empty column can only take a king – on its own or with everything on top of it.

Stock and waste: turn 1 or 3 cards

When nothing moves in the columns, you draw from the stock. The standard is “turn 1 card”: the top card of the stock goes face up onto the waste and can be played to a column or a foundation. Cards underneath become playable once the top one is gone.

When the stock runs out, you turn the whole waste over and start again – as often as you like. Each recycle costs points, though.

With “turn 3 cards” three cards go onto the waste at once, and only the top one is playable. Many cards stay blocked for longer, which makes the game noticeably harder. At Tavern Jack you choose this for free games on the start screen; the daily game always turns one card.

The foundations

Each foundation starts with an ace and continues upward in the same suit: Ace of Hearts, 2 of Hearts, 3 of Hearts … up to the King of Hearts. Only the top card of a column or of the waste can go to a foundation.

Cards may also come back from a foundation into a column if they fit there – sometimes you still need a 4 as a base for a 3 of the other colour. That costs points, though.

End and scoring

You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. Once every card is face up, “Auto-finish” does the rest. If you're stuck, you can undo moves or give up – your points so far then count. Scoring uses no clock and is based on classic Windows Solitaire:

• Card to a foundation: +10 points
• Card from the waste to a column: +5 points
• Face-down card turned up: +5 points
• Card from a foundation back to a column: −15 points
• Recycling the stock: −50 points (−20 when turning 3 cards)
• Undoing a move: −10 points
• Your score never drops below 0.
• Win bonus: 700 points minus 2 points per move (drawing and undoing count as moves too) – the quicker you solve it, the more you get.

Daily Solitaire: a solvable deal every day

Not every shuffled deal can be solved. In the Daily Solitaire everyone gets the same deal on the same day – and before it's dealt, a solver checks that it really comes out turning one card at a time. So you know: there is a way.

Your first run of the day counts for the daily leaderboard. Every move is replayed on the server, so there's no cheating. You can share your result spoiler-free – with your points, the number of moves and how often you recycled the stock.

Variants

Klondike is just one of many patience games. Relatives include FreeCell (all cards face up, plus four free cells) and Spider (two decks, built in one suit). Within Klondike, the main differences are the number of cards turned (1 or 3), how many passes through the stock are allowed and the scoring.

At Tavern Jack passes are unlimited and recycling costs points. Cards may return from the foundations to the columns, and face-down cards in the columns turn over automatically.