Most people learn Klondike by watching someone else play or by clicking around until the game rewards them. That works up to a point, but it leaves gaps, and those gaps are exactly where frustration lives. Why can I not move this card? Why did the game let me place that one? Understanding the actual rules of Klondike, stated clearly and completely, turns guesswork into confidence. This article lays out every rule you need, in plain language, with nothing important left out.
We will cover the deal, the three areas of the board, the precise rules for moving cards, the special role of Kings and empty columns, how redeals work, and how to tell when a game is truly over. Keep a game of Klondike open as you read so you can test each rule the moment you learn it.
The Deal and the Board
Klondike is played with one standard 52-card deck. After shuffling, the cards are dealt into a fixed pattern that never changes from game to game. The board that results has three separate regions, each governed by its own rules.
The Tableau
The tableau is the seven-column playing area. Columns are dealt with an increasing number of cards, one through seven from left to right, for 28 cards total. Only the top card of each column faces up. The face-down cards beneath are the puzzle you must gradually unravel.
The Stock and Waste
The 24 cards not dealt to the tableau become the stock, a face-down reserve. Turning the stock moves cards to the face-up waste pile, whose top card is playable. The stock and waste give you access to the cards that were not laid out at the start.
The Foundations
Four foundation piles, one per suit, begin empty. They are the goal: each must be filled from Ace to King in a single suit. The game is won when all four are complete.
The Core Rule of Tableau Movement
The single most important rule in Klondike governs how cards stack in the tableau. Cards build downward in rank and alternate in colour. This means you place a card onto another card that is exactly one rank higher and of the opposite colour. A black 5 accepts a red 4; a red Jack accepts a black 10. Red goes on black, black goes on red, always descending by one.
This alternating-colour rule is what makes Klondike a puzzle rather than a simple sort. Because you cannot stack same-colour cards, you constantly need the right opposite-colour card to keep a column growing, and finding those cards is the heart of the challenge. If you are still learning the basics of play, our step-by-step guide to how to play Klondike solitaire shows these moves in action.
The Rules of the Foundations
The foundations follow a different logic from the tableau. Here the rules are:
- Build up, not down. Foundations climb from low to high, the opposite of the tableau.
- One suit each. Every foundation holds a single suit, so all hearts go on the hearts foundation and never mix with another suit.
- Start with the Ace. A foundation can only begin with an Ace. Until an Ace appears, that suit's foundation stays empty.
- Follow strict order. After the Ace comes the 2, then 3, and so on to the King, with no skips.
- Cards can come back down, usually. Most versions let you pull a card off a foundation back into the tableau if it helps, though it is rarely wise.
Because foundations demand Aces first and then strict order, freeing the Aces and low cards buried in the tableau is your constant early priority.
Kings and Empty Columns
Empty columns are one of the most valuable resources in Klondike, and a special rule governs them. Only a King may be placed into an empty column. No other rank can start a fresh column, so a vacant space sits idle until you have a King, or a sequence headed by a King, ready to move into it.
This rule cuts two ways. Empty columns are powerful because they let you relocate awkward cards and unblock buried ones, but they are useless without a King to anchor them. Skilled players think carefully about which King to drop into a space, because the wrong choice can waste the opportunity. We explore this trade-off in depth in our Klondike strategy guide.
Drawing From the Stock and Redeals
When the tableau offers no useful moves, you draw from the stock. Depending on the game mode, you turn either one card or three cards at a time onto the waste. In draw three, only the top of each group of three is normally playable until you move it. The choice between these modes changes the game considerably, as we detail in Klondike draw 1 vs draw 3.
How Redeals Work
When the stock runs out, you gather the waste pile, flip it back into the stock, and continue drawing. This is called a redeal. Draw-one games traditionally allow unlimited redeals, letting you cycle the stock as many times as you like. Draw-three games sometimes limit redeals, and scoring versions may penalise them. Online you can usually pick the rule set you prefer. The mechanics of a redeal are worth stating precisely, because they trip up new players who expect the cards to be reshuffled:
- Play the stock down. Turn cards to the waste, playing whatever helps, until the stock is empty.
- Do not reshuffle. The waste keeps its existing order, so the cards will reappear in the same sequence.
- Flip the waste back. Turn the whole waste pile face down to reform the stock.
- Continue drawing. Resume turning cards, now able to reach any that you passed over before.
Because the order is preserved, a redeal is not a fresh chance so much as a second pass at the same cards, which is why planning which cards to play on each pass matters.
How a Game Ends
A Klondike game ends in one of two ways. You win when all 52 cards reach the foundations, completing every suit from Ace to King. You lose, or rather reach a dead end, when no legal moves remain: no tableau moves, no playable waste or stock cards, and no way to progress even after cycling the stock. Recognising a genuine dead end takes practice, because a game that looks stuck sometimes hides a move you overlooked. Learning to spot every available option is a skill covered in our piece on improving your win rate.
How Klondike Compares to Other Solitaires
These rules are specific to Klondike, and other popular solitaires bend them in interesting ways. Spider uses two decks and builds sequences by suit rather than alternating colours, so its winning condition is completing runs from King down to Ace. FreeCell deals every card face up and adds free cells where you can temporarily park a single card each, turning it into a game of pure calculation. Knowing how Klondike's rules differ makes those variants easier to pick up, and it deepens your appreciation of why Klondike plays the way it does.
Conclusion
The rules of Klondike are few but precise: deal seven tableau columns, build them down in alternating colours, fill empty columns only with Kings, and stack the foundations up by suit from Ace to King. Draw from the stock when you stall, redeal when it empties, and win when every card is sorted. Now that the rules are clear, put them to work. Start a fresh game of Klondike, or browse every game and guide on the dukeofsolitaire.com homepage to keep sharpening your play.