Solitaire

How to play Solitaire

1. Open the menu and choose Klondike, Spider, FreeCell, Pyramid or TriPeaks, or start one of today's daily deals.
2. Tap a card to send it to its best legal spot, tap it again for the next spot, or drag it where you want.
3. In Klondike and FreeCell, build columns down in alternating colours and move every card to the foundations from Ace to King.
4. In Spider, gather King-to-Ace runs of one suit; any card may rest on a card one rank higher.
5. In Pyramid, remove uncovered pairs that add up to 13. In TriPeaks, play cards one rank above or below the waste card.
6. Tap the stock when you need new cards. Use Hint to find a winning line and Undo as often as you like.

Controls

About Solitaire

Solitaire gathers five of the best-known patience games on one green desktop table. The cards are original pixel art with large corner ranks, small court portraits and patterned backs, painted sharply at the size of your screen instead of stretched from a small image. The window keeps the navy title bar and silver buttons of an early desktop. There is no account to create and no countdown unless you want to race your own best time. Your table waits in this browser until you come back to it.

Klondike is the classic. Seven columns build down in alternating red and black, only a King can fill an empty column, and the four foundations climb from Ace to King in suit. Choose draw one or draw three: in draw three only the top card of the waste can be played. Standard scoring gives ten points for each foundation card, five for each card turned over and for each waste card played to a column, and takes fifteen back when a card comes down from a foundation. Passes through the stock are unlimited. Vegas scoring charges fifty-two dollars for the deal, pays five for every foundation card and allows one pass with draw one or three passes with draw three, while a running bank carries from deal to deal.

Spider uses two decks in ten columns. Any card can rest on a card one rank higher, but only a run of one suit moves as a group. Complete a run from King down to Ace in a single suit and it leaves the table; clear all eight runs to win. The stock deals one card onto every column, so every column must hold a card first. Play with one suit to learn, two suits for a real test, or four suits for the classic hardest version. You start with five hundred points, each move costs one and each finished run pays one hundred.

FreeCell deals every card face up into eight columns and gives you four free cells, each holding a single card. Columns build down in alternating colours and the foundations fill from Ace to King. Longer runs move together when enough free cells and empty columns could carry them one card at a time, and the game works out that limit for you. Pyramid asks you to remove uncovered pairs that add up to thirteen, with Jacks worth eleven, Queens twelve and Kings removed alone, turning the stock one card at a time for up to three passes. TriPeaks spreads three overlapping peaks; play any uncovered card one rank above or below the waste card, with King and Ace connecting, and watch each unbroken run score more for every card.

Winnable deals are not a promise printed on a label. For each rule set, a search program played 366 deals through to a win under the exact rules used here, and only those deals appear when Winnable is selected, in the daily deals and in the Journey. The solver can see face-down cards, so a winnable deal can still need a lucky guess from you. Random shuffles remain available for the traditional experience, and Vegas Klondike and four-suit Spider always use random shuffles. Every deal also has a number, so you can replay a favourite or send it to a friend.

Each day brings five daily deals, one for every game, the same for all players. Win a deal for one star, win without hints for a second and without undo for a third. Daily wins build a streak and fill in a small calendar for the month. The Journey offers thirty hand-picked winnable deals in six chapters, starting with gentle Klondike and moving through TriPeaks, FreeCell, Pyramid, Spider and a closing Grand Tour of harder deals. Win three deals in a chapter to open the next. Wins and stars unlock card backs such as Tartan, Sunburst and Starfield, and table colours from teal to plum.

Moving cards is quick on any device. Tap a card and it goes to its best legal spot; tap the same card again to try the next spot, or drag a card or a whole run exactly where you want it. If you prefer to choose every destination, switch Tap to move off and tap a card, then its destination. Cards that can never be needed again drift to the foundations on their own, and once a game is safely solved, Auto finishes it for you. Undo is unlimited and steps back over your move together with anything auto-played after it. Hint first offers an obvious foundation card, then searches for a winning line from the current table and says when it has found one.

The table adapts to the screen. On a phone held upright the columns stretch across the full width with readable ranks on every overlapping card, and on a phone held sideways the buttons move into a rail beside the table so the cards stay large. Fullscreen hides everything else. A left-handed option swaps the stock and foundations, and the timer can be hidden. Keyboard players can move a cursor with the arrow keys and play with Enter and Space. Winning ends with the familiar cascade of bouncing cards, replaced by a simple results screen when your system asks for reduced motion. Short synthesized card sounds are optional and start muted.

A few useful tricks

• In Klondike, turn over face-down cards first, starting with the longest columns.
• Save an empty column for a King that frees something useful. In FreeCell an empty column is worth more than a free cell.
• In Spider, build in suit whenever you can; mixed runs cannot move together.
• In TriPeaks, look for the longest chain before playing, because every card in a run scores more than the last.
• In Pyramid, clear cards that cover others before pairing with the waste card.
• If you are stuck, Hint tells you whether a winning line still exists. Undo back until it does.

Good questions