Play Alaska Solitaire Online for Free (No Signup Required)

Deal a Yukon-style staircase, then build in suit up or down at will, but reverse direction wrong and a pile locks for good.

Alaska Solitaire is a member of the Yukon family and starts from the same staircase deal: all 52 cards go straight onto the tableau, with a growing bank of face-down cards buried under the face-up ones and no stock to fall back on. As in Yukon, any face-up card may be picked up along with everything sitting on top of it, no matter how jumbled the group is.

What sets Alaska apart is its building rule. It is the icy cousin of Russian Solitaire — piles must be built in suit, but they may run up or down as you please, so a 9 of clubs will happily take either the 8 or the 10 of clubs. That two-way traffic sounds generous, yet reversing direction at the wrong moment can lock a pile up for good.

It's a tough single-deck game, and most deals end in defeat. Because groups move freely and sequences can run either direction, your results here lean heavily on skill.

If you like Alaska, Yukon Solitaire is the natural next stop.

Plain Solitaire trades this game's reversible suit-building for the familiar single-direction climb, and it's worth returning to.

If you run into anything odd or have an idea that would make the game better, please contact me.

Enjoy playing!

How to play Alaska Solitaire

Layout:

4 foundation piles: Build up in suit from Ace to King.

7 tableau piles: Build up or down in the same suit. Any face-up card may be moved together with every card on top of it, in sequence or not. Only Kings may fill empty spaces. The first pile is dealt one face-up card; the second through seventh piles receive one to six face-down cards each, topped with five face-up cards.

Foundation:

There are four foundation piles.

Any Ace may be moved to an empty foundation pile. A card can be added to a foundation pile only if it's one rank higher and the same suit as the pile's current top card, so the only card that fits on an 8 of spades is a 9 of spades. There can be no more than 13 cards in a pile.

The top card of each foundation can be moved back into play if another pile will accept it.

Tableau:

The seven tableau piles hold the entire deck in a downward fan. The first pile gets a single face-up card, while the remaining piles get one to six face-down cards topped with five face-up cards each.

A card can be added to a tableau pile only if it's one rank higher or lower and the same suit as the pile's current top card, so the only cards that fit on an 8 of spades are the 7 of spades and the 9 of spades.

Any face-up card may be picked up together with all the cards resting on top of it, whether or not they form a sequence; only the bottom card of the moved group has to fit the pile it lands on. A face-down card is turned over as soon as it becomes the top card of its pile.

Empty tableau spots may only be filled with a King or a group of cards headed by a King.