Learn solitaire in one sitting
How to Play Solitaire
Learn Klondike from the opening deal to moving all 52 cards home. You will set up the seven tableau columns, learn the four legal moves, then practice on live boards that check your progress. Every lesson deal is solver-verified winnable, so a stuck position is a decision to solve — never a dead end.
Learn Solitaire in 2 minutes: rules, setup and 5 tips
A quick video walkthrough of the Solitaire table, the goal, how to build, and five habits that raise your win rate. Full written rules and strategy follow below.
In this video
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What you need
One standard 52-card deck with the Jokers removed — nothing else. Online, the deal happens for you; with physical cards you also want a surface wide enough for seven columns side by side. Solitaire is a one-player game in the truest sense: the shuffled deck is the opponent, and it plays a different defense every time.
How to set up solitaire
Five motions and the table is ready. This layout — called the tableau — is the same whether you deal it by hand or a website deals it for you.
- Shuffle the full 52-card deck.
- Deal seven columns left to right: one card on the first column, two on the second, adding one per column up to seven on the last.
- Turn only the top card of each column face up — the other 21 stay hidden.
- Place the remaining 24 cards face down as the stock, with an empty space beside it for the waste.
- Leave room above the columns for four foundation piles — they start empty and end the game full.
28 cards land on the tableau (1+2+3+4+5+6+7), and the other 24 form the stock — 52 total, every one of them bound for a foundation.
Reusable visual resource
Solitaire setup and opening layout
A labeled reference view of the opening Klondike layout.
Solitaire setup and opening layout — PlaySolitaire.io (https://playsolitaire.io/how-to-play-solitaire#reuse-solitaire-setup-diagram), CC BY 4.0
Here is that exact layout as a live board. Click the stock to draw, drag cards between columns — it is a real deal (a winnable one), and nothing you do here touches your saved game.
The rules of solitaire
Klondike has exactly four kinds of legal move. Learn these and you know the whole game — everything after this is judgment about which move to make first.
Build the tableau down, in alternating colors
A card may land on a tableau column when it is one rank lower and the opposite color of the card beneath it: the black 9 onto the red 10, the red Jack onto the black Queen. Face-up cards already in a valid sequence move together as a unit, so a red 8, black 7, red 6 chain relocates in a single drag.
Empty Send cards up to the foundations by suit
Foundations build upward in one suit, always starting with the Ace: A, 2, 3 and so on to the King. The top card of any tableau column and the top card of the waste are both eligible. Promoting a card is usually right — but not always, which is exactly where solitaire stops being a sorting exercise and starts being a game.
Draw from the stock when the board stalls
Clicking the stock flips cards into the waste; only the top waste card is playable. When the stock runs out, the waste turns back over and becomes the stock again, in the same order. Drawing is never a wasted turn — it is how the other 24 cards reach the game.
Flip what you uncover — and save empty columns for Kings
Whenever a move exposes a face-down card, it flips face up and joins play; releasing all 21 hidden cards is the real work of the game. And when a column empties completely, only a King — or a run led by one — may take the space, so plan the tenant before you evict.
Landing card 
4♦ revealed Play your first game — three guided boards
Reading rules is slower than using them. Each board below is a real, solver-verified winnable deal with a single goal; the board watches your moves and marks the goal complete the moment you reach it. The three run independently — play any or all.
Find your first Ace
Aces open the foundations, and this deal keeps one within easy reach: scan the columns first, then draw from the stock until it surfaces. Click the Ace and it flies home.
Free a hidden card
This deal has a legal tableau move waiting in the opening position. Find the top card that fits onto another column, move it, and watch the card underneath flip into play.
Chain moves: five cards home
Now put it together — tableau builds, stock draws, and promotions in whatever order the board rewards. Five cards on the foundations means you have used every kind of move the game has.
Playing with real cards vs online
The paper game is identical in rules and different in feel. Dealing takes a minute instead of an instant, there is no undo, and no one stops an illegal move — the discipline is yours. Agree on two house rules before you start: how many cards to draw at once (one or three), and how many passes through the stock you allow. Online, classic Solitaire handles all of that, deals instantly, and — on this site — can even hand you a deal that is guaranteed winnable while you learn.
Deal it yourself
- 52 cards, Jokers removed
- Seven columns and room to build
- You enforce every move
Start in one click
- Instant shuffle and setup
- Illegal moves are blocked
- Undo and lessons help you learn
Draw 1 vs Draw 3
The one rule choice every solitaire app asks you to make. Draw 1 flips a single card per stock click and is the friendlier game; Draw 3 — Klondike Turn 3 — flips three at once with only the top card playable, which roughly triples the planning load. Interestingly, our measured results put the two closer together than theory predicts — the players who choose Draw 3 are simply more experienced.
Turn over one card at a time. Best for learning the rhythm.
Three cards turn together. Only the top card is immediately playable.
| Draw 1 | Draw 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Cards turned per draw | One — you see all 24 stock cards every pass | Three, but only the top one is playable |
| Stock visibility | Every card surfaces in sequence | Cards can stay locked behind neighbors for a whole pass |
| Planning depth | Direct — consequences of each choice are visible | Much deeper — one waste play reshuffles the rhythm of the pass |
| Best for | Learning the game | The classic next step once Draw 1 feels routine |
Seven beginner mistakes (and what to do instead)
These seven habits cost beginners more winnable games than bad luck ever will. Tap a card to flip it and see the better play.
Scoring: Standard and Vegas
Scoring is optional bookkeeping on top of the same game. The Standard system rewards progress; Vegas turns each deal into a wager. Neither changes a single rule of play.
| Event | Standard | Vegas |
|---|---|---|
| Card moved to a foundation | +10 | +$5 per card |
| Waste card played to the tableau | +5 | — |
| Face-down card flipped | +5 | — |
| Card taken back off a foundation | −15 | nothing refunded |
| Starting balance | 0 | −$52 buy-in per deal |
| Passes through the stock | unlimited | one (some rooms allow three) |
Vegas scoring explains the classic one-pass house rule: the casino sells you the 52-card deal and pays $5 for every card you land.
How many games can you actually win?
Honest expectations make the game more fun, not less. Research puts thoughtful Draw 1 play at a 79–82% theoretical ceiling; across roughly 188,000 real Solitaire games played on this site in June 2026, players won 31%. Both numbers are true. The gap is hidden information plus human error — and shrinking it is what practice is for.
| Condition | Share of deals |
|---|---|
| Theoretically winnable with every card position known ("thoughtful" Draw 1) | ≈ 79–82% |
| Unwinnable before the first move | about 1 in 5 |
| Actually won by players on this site (Solitaire, June 2026) | 31% |
Solitaire terms, translated
Eight words cover every solitaire conversation you will ever read — including the rest of this site.
Stock
The face-down pile of 24 undealt cards. Click or tap it to draw.
Waste
The face-up pile beside the stock where drawn cards wait. Only its top card is playable.
Tableau
The seven working columns in the middle of the board. All building happens here.
Foundation
One of the four suit piles you are filling from Ace to King. Four full foundations end the game.
Run
A face-up, descending, color-alternating sequence that moves between columns as a single unit.
Build
To place cards in legal order — downward on the tableau, upward on a foundation.
Flip
Turning a face-down tableau card face up by moving away everything above it.
Recycle
Turning the exhausted waste back into a fresh stock, order preserved. Unlimited here; paper house rules often cap it.
Continue with the complete solitaire terms glossary, including cells, reserves, exposed cards, and the vocabulary used by other games.
How-to-play FAQ
How many cards do you deal in solitaire?
Twenty-eight, into seven columns holding 1 through 7 cards — the remaining 24 become the stock. All 52 cards are in play from the first move.
Do you flip 1 or 3 cards in solitaire?
Both are standard rules. Draw 1 flips one card per stock click and is the beginner-friendly game; Draw 3 is the classic hard mode — the same board with roughly a quarter of the practical win rate. On this site it is a toggle above the board.
Is Klondike the same as solitaire?
In everyday speech, yes — "solitaire" almost always means Klondike, the version Windows made universal in 1990. Strictly, solitaire is the family name: Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, and Pyramid are all members with different rules.
Is solitaire played with 7 or 8 columns?
Classic Solitaire deals 7 tableau columns. If you are looking at 8 columns with every card face up, that game is FreeCell.
Can every game of solitaire be won?
No. Research puts thoughtful Draw 1 play at a 79–82% winnable ceiling, and real players on this site win about 31% — roughly one deal in five is unwinnable no matter what you do. Our measured solitaire win rates page publishes the real numbers for every variant we run.
What do I do when the stock runs out?
Click the empty stock slot: the waste flips back over and becomes the stock again, in the same order. Online play typically allows unlimited passes; stricter paper rules cap them at one or three.
Can I move a card back down from a foundation?
Yes — onto any tableau card that legally accepts it. Standard scoring charges 15 points for the retreat and Vegas refunds nothing, but the move is legal and occasionally the only way to unstick a column.
How long does a game of solitaire take?
Five to fifteen minutes for most players once the cards are dealt — quick when the deal cooperates, longer when the endgame needs thought. Dealing by hand adds a minute or two; online it is instant.
Cite, reuse & print
This guide, its diagrams, and the win-rate figures behind it are maintained as a stable reference: section anchors on this page do not change. Reuse the figures with attribution, or copy a ready-made citation below.
NM Media. (2026). How to play solitaire — rules, setup & first moves. PlaySolitaire.io. https://playsolitaire.io/how-to-play-solitaire
@misc{playsolitaire_howto_2026,
author = {{NM Media}},
title = {How to Play Solitaire --- Rules, Setup \& First Moves},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://playsolitaire.io/how-to-play-solitaire}},
note = {Measured win-rate data as of 2026-06-30}
}
The setup diagram and the winning-game illustration on this page are licensed CC BY 4.0 — free to reuse with a link back to this page. The card-art source files themselves are not covered by this license, and the measured win-rate dataset has its own open-data terms on the win-rates page. License details ›