Solitaire (Klondike) Tips to Win More Games

Playnook Games Blog · 4 min read

Klondike solitaire is more winnable than most casual players realize — the difference usually comes down to move order, not luck. These habits noticeably raise your win rate.

1. Don't rush cards to the foundation

It's tempting to send every ace and low card up to the foundation piles the moment it's available, but doing this too early often locks a card away right when you needed it to unblock a tableau column. Keep low cards on the tableau if they're actively helping you uncover hidden cards.

2. Prioritize uncovering face-down cards

Your main goal early in the game isn't scoring — it's revealing as many face-down cards as possible, since those are the only cards you don't yet have full information about. A move that flips a new card is usually worth more than a move that just tidies up already-visible cards.

3. Empty columns are extremely valuable

A fully empty tableau column can hold any card, making it one of the most powerful tools in the game for reorganizing a stuck position. Work toward emptying at least one column rather than spreading cards evenly across all seven.

4. Move kings to empty columns deliberately

Only move a king into an empty column when it actually unblocks something useful underneath. Filling your one empty column with a king too early can waste the flexibility that empty column was giving you.

Approaching Draw 3 hard mode

Playnook Games' Solitaire includes a Draw 3 hard mode, where you cycle through the deck three cards at a time instead of one, and only the top card of each group of three is playable. This makes stock-pile planning much more important — track roughly where useful cards sit in the draw cycle instead of hoping to spot them individually.