How to Play Solitaire: Rules & Set-Up [11 Illustrated Steps + Video]

Step 1: To deal Klondike, you start by laying out seven cards from the deck. Layout the first card face up on your left-hand side. Next, place six cards face down on the right side of the initial card. You now have seven rows on which you'll build. These piles are also called the "tableau", but more on that later.

Step 2: Place a single card face-up on the second row and then deal five face-down cards on the remaining piles. I'm sure you're noticing a pattern emerge in the layout. To set up the remaining cards, follow the same pattern as before until there's a face-up card on all rows.

Step 3: Place the remainder of your deck above the first row. The rest of the cards are used in the game and will act as your "stock" pile. The seven rows should have a staircase pattern with the last card in each row facing up. The seven rows are also called the "tableau", which is where most of the gameplay will happen.

Step 4: Before getting into how to play the game, you'll need to leave room for your discard pile, also known as "waste" or "talon" pile. This pile is where you'll discard any cards you've drawn from your stock and can't use. The waste pile will start empty at the start of the game, but you'll use it continually throughout the game, so make sure you leave some space for it.

You'll also need to make room for your "foundation" piles. The foundation is used throughout the game as you get to clear cards from the tableau. They're also empty initially, so make sure you reserve some space for them.

Step 1: The object of Solitaire is to get all cards moved to the foundation piles in ascending order, starting with the ace and ending with the king. If you manage to get all your cards to end up on the foundation piles, then you've won the game.

When beginning a new game, the first thing to look out for is if any top cards are aces. If they are, you can move them to the foundation straight away.

Step 2: Once you move a top card to the foundation or another tableau, you'll reveal the face-down card beneath it. You can now turn your new top card over to find out what it is. In general, it's an ideal strategy to move cards to the foundation when possible, so move the new two of diamonds to the foundation pile.

Step 3: Now that there are no more cards that can be moved to the foundation, move cards from one tableau to another wherever possible. You can move a card from one tableau to another if the card being moved is lower than and another color than the card it's being moved onto.

Step 4: You can also move several cards at a time, as long as the cards being moved are in descending order and alternating colors. Keep placing the cards on the tableau on top of each other until there are no more available moves.

Step 5: In Klondike Turn Three, you can draw three cards from the stock pile and move them face-up onto the waste pile when there are no more available moves, which gives you the opportunity of using the top card in the waste pile. There's also a version of the game, Klondike Turn One, that lets you turn one card at a time from the stock pile, but in the classic version, you draw three cards at a time. You can draw as many times as you want throughout the game, and once there are no more cards in the stock pile, simply grab the waste pile, turn it over, place it on the stock pile, and you can draw again.

Step 6: The last rule you need to know about is how to start a new tableau. If there's an empty tableau, then you're allowed to move a king to it, but only a king! Once you're moved a king there, the tableau acts as any other tableau.

Step 7: All there's left to do now is repeat all the moves explained above until, knock on wood, you win the game, which means you'll end up with all the cards in the foundation piles.