Free Klondike solitaire is the game most people simply call solitaire — the one that came bundled with every office computer for decades. You deal 28 cards into seven columns, keep 24 in reserve, and slowly sort all 52 into four tidy piles by suit. It is free to play here, forever, with nothing to install and no account to make. Just open the page and deal.
How to play Klondike solitaire
The board has three parts: seven tableau columns in the middle, the stock and waste in the top corner, and four empty foundation slots. Only the last card in each column starts face-up; the rest flip over as you clear the cards above them. You build the columns downward in alternating colours, so a red six drops onto a black seven, and a black five onto that red six. Tap the stock to turn cards to the waste when your columns stall.
The goal is the four foundations, which build upward by suit starting with each Ace: Ace, two, three, all the way to King. Send Aces and twos up as soon as you see them. An empty column is prime real estate, but only a King (or a run led by a King) may move into it. Uncover a face-down card and it flips automatically. Win by getting every card home. Undo as often as you like, tap Hint when nothing jumps out, or start fresh. Fancy a change? Try FreeCell, Spider or Yukon.
Klondike solitaire strategy & tips
A few plain habits win far more Klondike games than luck does. First, always turn up hidden cards before anything else — a column with fewer face-down cards is a column closer to opening up. Second, do not rush every card to the foundation. A low card sitting on a foundation can no longer catch an off-colour neighbour from the tableau, so keep a couple in reserve until you are sure you no longer need them.
Think before you empty a column. An open column is only useful if you have a King ready to fill it; leaving it bare while your Kings are buried just wastes the space. When you play draw-three, remember the waste cycles in fixed groups of three, so plan which card you actually want to reach and count your way to it. Above all, use Undo as a thinking tool: try a line, see where it leads, and step back if it dead-ends. There is no penalty here for exploring.
Klondike draw one vs draw three
Klondike comes in two flavours and the difference is bigger than it looks. In draw-one you flip a single card off the stock at a time, so every card in the reserve is reachable and a large share of deals can be won with careful play. It is the friendlier, more forgiving version and a good place to start.
Draw-three flips cards in packets of three and only lets you play the top one, which means some reserve cards hide behind others until the order works in your favour. Fewer deals are winnable and each one asks for more planning — it is the version card sharks tend to prefer. Neither is more "real" than the other; they are just two moods of the same game. Both are free here with unlimited redeals, so pick whichever fits your afternoon.