A complete guide to the classic single-deck patience: a layout of seven columns, four foundations by suit from ace to king, a stock for emergencies, and the controls on muta.pro. Read it and you're ready to play.
Klondike Solitaire is a single-player patience with one deck of 52 cards. Your task is to move all 52 cards into four foundations, one for each suit. Each foundation is built from bottom to top from ace to king: ace, two, three … jack, queen, king. Complete all four suits in full and the patience is solved.
The main difficulty is that the cards you need hide under face-down cards and under other suits. Victory comes when you carefully uncover the piles and play cards to the foundations in the correct order.
On the table are laid out seven columns. The first column has one card, the second two and so on — the seventh has seven cards. In each column the top card is face up, the rest lie face down. There are 28 cards on the table in all, the remaining 24 cards go into the stock (the deck). At the top, space is left for four foundations. The game starts at once: you can move any face-up card.
In each of the four foundations cards are placed in ascending order and strictly of one suit: first the ace, then the two, three and so on up to the king. You can play to a foundation a card from the open top of a tableau column or from the waste.
In the tableau columns cards are built in descending order and alternating color: a black six is placed on a red seven, a red jack on a black queen. This is how piles are cleared and face-down cards are freed.
Several correctly stacked cards (descending and alternating color) are moved between columns all together, as a single pile. This lets you rearrange long sequences in one move.
When you remove a card that had a face-down card beneath it, that card automatically flips face up and comes into play. Each such flip brings you closer to victory and earns points.
If a column is fully cleared, the freed space can be taken only by a king (with its sequence). An empty column is a valuable lever for rearrangements, so do not waste it carelessly.
Clicking the stock deals cards to the waste — modes for one card and for three cards are available. The top card of the waste is always in play. When the stock is exhausted, it can be reshuffled once — on muta.pro this costs penalty points.
Clear examples on the green Klondike table: the hearts and diamonds suits are red, spades and clubs are black. A gold frame marks the card being moved or the target.
Game is wonwhen all 52 cards are collected in the four foundations from ace to king. On muta.pro the score starts at zero. Playing a card to a foundation earns +10, moving a card from the waste to a column — +5, flipping a face-down card — +5. Taking a card back from a foundation costs −15, reshuffling the deck — −20. For a fast finish a large time bonus is awarded (about +700). The fewer extra moves and the faster the game, the higher the final score.
First of all make moves that flip face-down cards in the long columns — this widens your choice and opens up the suits you need.
A card in a column is often more useful for receiving other cards. Play it to a foundation only when it is no longer needed for rearrangements.
A free column is a powerful tool. Open it for a king to unload heavy columns, not for a random card.
When the table is cleared and no face-down cards remain, «⚡ Auto-collect» quickly gathers the rest into the foundations and seals the win.
Klondike rests on two simple laws that together set the whole tactics: in the columns the rank drops by one, and the colour alternates. Red accepts only black, black — only red. Learn to read the tableau with these eyes, and every move becomes obvious: you no longer sift through the cards at random, you see at once where each one belongs.
An experienced player doesn't examine the cards one by one — they see the tableau as a web of possible junctions. A face-up red card mentally reaches toward two black cards one rank higher, a black one toward two red. While both supports are available, the card stays flexible in play; the moment both slip under the piles or into the foundations, it risks getting stuck. This simple picture in your head saves dozens of wasted moves per game.
A correct chain: black king, red queen, black jack — the rank drops, the colour alternates.
To accept a red card, look for a free black one one rank higher, and vice versa. A red ten needs an available black jack — keep such "hooks" open.
Spades and clubs are equivalent, hearts and diamonds are equivalent. For stacking in a column only the colour matters — either a club or a spade jack will land on a red queen.
In the foundations, on the contrary, the suit is strict: each foundation gathers only hearts, only spades and so on. Don't confuse the two different laws of the table.
Aces and twos are the only cards that go to the foundation without regret. They never serve as a support in the columns: nothing stacks on an ace, and a two is accepted only by the ace of the same foundation. So send them up the moment they turn face up — in play they only clutter the tableau and lock the cards beneath them.
The ace of diamonds goes to the foundation, the two follows — and a face-down card is exposed beneath them.
With threes and higher the rule reverses. A low face-up card in a column is a landing spot for a card of the opposite colour. Send a three or four to the foundation too early and you risk leaving a neighbouring card without support and stalling the column. Keep the foundations roughly level by rank: if one foundation runs ahead, you lose the low cards that could have worked as supports on the tableau.
A useful guide is the "two-rank rule": don't send a card up if the game still needs a card one or two ranks lower of its own colour in another column. Hold back a five while a four hangs nearby with nowhere to go but onto that five. Aces and twos are exempt from this rule — they always go up.
The moment you spot an ace or a two in play or in the waste, send it to the foundation. Keeping them on the tableau is pointless — they accept no cards.
Before sending a low card up, check: might it be needed as a support for a card you are about to expose?
Keep the foundations roughly level by rank. A foundation that races ahead deprives you of low supports in the columns.
An empty column is the most powerful lever in Klondike, but it can be filled only by a king. This makes a free column useless if no king is available. Before you clear a column down to the bottom, make sure you have a king ready to take the freed spot — otherwise the column becomes dead weight.
The value of an empty column is that it accepts any king of any colour, and so unblocks a suit that would otherwise be locked. A king buried deep in a heavy column often holds three or four needed cards beneath it; moving it into the empty space exposes them all at once. That is exactly why a free column is saved for the moment it delivers the maximum exposing effect, rather than spent on the first king that comes along.
The king of hearts rolls into the empty column, exposes a face-down card and accepts a black queen.
Empty a column only when you can see a king available for it. An empty spot without a king is not a win but a wasted column.
Into an empty column you can move a king together with the sequence already built beneath it — this unloads a heavy column in a single move.
One empty column is worth more than two hasty moves that fill it. Keep it open until you truly need it.
The strength of Klondike lies in moving ready-made sequences as a whole. Several cards stacked in descending order and alternating colour move between columns as a single pile. But moving a chain blindly is dangerous: if the move covers the only support of the needed colour, you build your own dead end. Always work out what will be revealed beneath the chain and where the freed card will then land.
Look at the chain as a whole, not at the top card. The question is not "where do I put this seven", but "will the new column accept the whole bundle from the seven down, and will the move expose a face-down card in the old place". A good move always solves two tasks at once: it rearranges the cards into a convenient order and opens something new beneath them. A move that merely shuffles a chain back and forth without exposing anything brings you no closer to victory — it only spends your options.
Be especially careful with moves that break up your only support of the needed colour. If a black nine is the last available landing for red eights, and you cover it with a long red chain, the next red eight will be left homeless. Count not only the current move but also where the cards you are about to expose with this move will land.
Before moving, ask: what will be revealed beneath the chain and will there be a spot for it? No answer — the move is premature.
A red five in the foundation will no longer accept a black four. Keep the low cards in play while they work as supports.
A good chain move doesn't just rearrange the cards — it opens the face-down one beneath them. A move that exposes nothing is most often superfluous.