Solitaire Strategy

Solitaire looks like luck, but the difference between an average player and a winning one is a small set of decision rules. Klondike is not winnable every time, but most draw-one deals can be won with careful play — and draw-three is much harder but far from hopeless. Here is how to think about the board.

Rule 1: expose face-down cards first

The single biggest beginner mistake is tidying visible cards instead of uncovering hidden ones. Every face-down card you turn over adds new options. When choosing between two legal moves, prefer the one that flips a hidden card, even if it looks less orderly. Hidden information is your real bottleneck, not neat stacks.

Rule 2: build a colour and a black, not "perfect" columns

It is tempting to stack every card in sequence. Resist it. Keep at least one column built on a black card and one on a red, so either colour has somewhere to go. Ideally you want a column ending in a red 7 and another ending in a black 7 as early as possible — they accept a wide range of movable cards.

Rule 3: empty columns are for Kings

An empty column can only be filled by a King (or a sequence starting with a King). Do not spend an empty column on anything else if a King is waiting. When you do place a King, place one that unhides the most cards underneath the pile you move it from.

Rule 4: Aces and Twos go up immediately

Foundation cards are rarely useful in the tableau, and moving them up frees space and unlocks the next rank. Send Aces and Twos to the foundation as soon as you legally can. For higher cards, be more careful — a card on the foundation can never help you build the tableau again.

Rule 5: cycle the stock with a plan

In draw-three, you will often pass through the stock more than once. Before you do, note what you are hoping to find and where it could go. If two full passes are available, the second is usually more productive because the board has changed. In draw-one, do not waste a pass by clicking quickly — look at where each card can land.

Spider Solitaire in one paragraph

Spider rewards patience and suit discipline. In one-suit mode you can be loose; in four-suit mode, build same-suit runs whenever possible, because only a full King-to-Ace same-suit run is removed. Keep at least two empty columns for moving runs, and avoid burying a nearly complete run under unrelated cards.