More people have played Klondike Solitaire than almost any other card game in history — largely thanks to a computer that came pre-loaded with it. Here's how to play it properly, and where it actually came from.
How to Play Klondike Solitaire
Klondike is the single-player card game most people simply call "Solitaire." It's played with one standard 52-card deck, and the goal is to move every card into four foundation piles, sorted by suit and built up in order from ace to king.
To set up, deal seven columns, or "tableau" piles, in a row. The first pile has one card, the second has two, and so on up to seven cards in the last pile. Only the top card of each pile is dealt face-up; the rest stay face-down. The remaining cards form your draw pile, called the stock.
Within the tableau, you build sequences downward alternating between red and black suits — for example, you can place a black 7 onto a red 8. Any face-down card revealed by removing cards above it is flipped face-up and can be used. An empty tableau column can only be filled by a king (or a valid sequence starting with a king).
Whenever an ace becomes available, move it to a foundation pile to start building that suit upward: ace, 2, 3, and so on to king. You can draw cards from the stock one or three at a time, depending on the variant, cycling through when you reach the end. The game is won when all 52 cards have been sorted into the four foundations — though in the classic single-deal version, not every shuffle is winnable, which is part of the game's enduring challenge.
The History of Klondike Solitaire
Solitaire-style card games trace back to 18th-century Europe, with the earliest written references appearing in Northern European and Scandinavian sources from the 1760s through 1780s. One of the first documented mentions comes from a German text, Das Neue Königliche L'Hombre-Spiel ("The New Royal L'Hombre-Game"). In much of Europe the games were called "Patience," while in parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia they were known as "Kabale" — names that reflected the game's likely roots in card-based fortune-telling, where the layout and outcome were read almost like a tarot spread. The popular story connecting Napoleon Bonaparte to solitaire — that he whiled away exile playing patience games — is a charming legend, but there's no solid historical evidence he actually played these specific games, so it's worth treating as folklore rather than fact.
The specific "Klondike" variant, with its seven-pile tableau, takes its name from Canada's Yukon region, site of the famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–1899. Whether miners actually invented or simply popularized this deal during the long, isolated winters is debated among historians, and no hard evidence confirms the game itself originated there — but the regional name stuck, and the game was documented in Hoyle's Games by 1907. Klondike's real explosion in popularity, however, came a century later: when Microsoft bundled a digital version with Windows starting in 1990, it introduced the game to hundreds of millions of computer users, cementing Klondike as the default meaning of "Solitaire" worldwide.
A Few Strategy Basics
Good Klondike play starts before you touch the stock pile. Prioritize uncovering face-down cards in the tableau over building long sequences early on, since new information is more valuable than a tidy-looking column when the game is young. Try to keep at least one column open for a king when possible, and avoid burying aces or twos deep in tableau sequences if you can help it — you'll want them accessible the moment a foundation pile is ready for them.
It's also worth resisting the urge to move cards to the foundations the instant they're available. Sometimes holding a low card in the tableau a little longer gives you more flexibility to build alternating-color sequences and unbury cards underneath it. Not every Klondike deal can be won with perfect play — a meaningful percentage of shuffles are mathematically unsolvable — but thoughtful sequencing meaningfully improves your win rate over a large number of games.
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