Klondike Solitaire Rules

Klondike is the solitaire most people picture when they hear the word. You start with most of the deck hidden, turn cards over as you go, and try to move all 52 up to the four foundation piles in order. Some deals work out and some do not, which is part of why it stays interesting.

How the deal is laid out

Seven tableau columns are dealt left to right.
Column 1 gets one card, column 2 gets two, and so on up to seven in the last column (28 cards in total).
Only the bottom card of each column starts face-up. Everything above it is face-down.
The remaining 24 cards become the stock, sitting face-down in the corner.
The waste pile next to the stock starts empty.
The four foundations start empty and live across the top.

The stock and the waste

When you cannot make a useful move, you draw from the stock. Click it to turn cards onto the waste pile. The top card of the waste is the one you can play, onto a tableau column or up to a foundation.

Draw-1 turns one card at a time. Draw-3 turns three, and only the top of those three is in play.
You pick draw-1 or draw-3 in settings. Draw-1 is friendlier and wins more often.
When the stock runs out, click the empty space to recycle the waste back into the stock and go again. There is no limit on how many times you can do this.

Building the tableau

Stack cards down by one rank and in alternating colors. A red six goes on a black seven, a black five on a red six.
Move a single card, or a whole run of face-up cards that already follow the alternating-color order, as one unit. There is no cap on run length.
Take the last face-up card off a column and the face-down card underneath it flips up, giving you something new to work with.
An empty column is valuable. Only a King, or a run headed by a King, can move into one.

The foundations

Each foundation collects one suit and builds up from the Ace to the King.
Play an Ace as soon as you can reach it, then the two of that suit, and so on.
You can pull a card back off a foundation if you need it on the tableau, though you rarely should.
Get all four suits home, Ace through King, and you have won.

What makes Klondike its own game

If you have played FreeCell, a few things will feel different here:

Most of the board is hidden at the start, so part of the skill is deciding which face-down cards to chase.
There is a stock to draw from instead of an open layout, and you can cycle through it as often as you like.
Empty columns are reserved for Kings, so freeing one is a real decision rather than a free parking spot.
Not every deal can be solved. A random deal might be a dead end, which is normal and expected.