How to Play Solitaire
This tutorial will teach you everything you need to know in order to play solitaire. Having a good understanding of the rules for classic solitaire or klondike will also allow you to learn and play other variants with ease.
The first step in learning how to play solitaire is understanding some of the key terms that go along with the game.
Types of solitaire piles
These are the main piles that you will be interacting with when playing solitaire:
- Tableau: seven columns which have piles of cards
- Foundation: four total piles or one for each suit
- Stock: remaining stack of cards after the tableau is dealt initially
- Waste: face up cards from drawing off the stock pile
Order of cards in a solitaire solitaire game
A standard game of solitaire is played with a 52-card deck. This includes four suits and thirteen cards in each suit. The rank of cards are as follows from high to low K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, A.
When moving cards in the tableau the order of cards are high to low, where as the order of cards in the foundation is from low to high as each foundation pile starts with an ace as the base card.
How to setup a game of solitaire
To set up a game of solitaire there are three main steps that can be followed which include 1. setting up the tableau; 2. set up the foundation piles; and 3. setting up the stockpile and waste pile.
Here is our article on how to set up a game of solitaire which covers these three steps in detail if you are playing with a physical 52-card playing deck or want to understand the mechanics of the game further.
How to win at solitaire
To win a game of solitaire your objective is to move all of the cards from the stockpile, waste pile and tableau into the foundation. Once all of the cards have been sorted in the foundation pile in ascending order, starting with an ace as the base, the game of solitaire is won!
How to play solitaire
Now that you understand some of the key solitaire terms as well as the objective to win, let’s go over how you can play solitaire to win.
Cards are drawn off the stockpile and into the waste pile face up. You are able to move the card from the waste pile to either the tableau or foundation.
Moving a card to the tableau
You are able to move a card to the tableau in a few different situations. The first is if the columns is empty. An empty column can be used to place any card that you want. The second is when you want to place the card on a card already in a column. For it to count as a valid place, the cards must both alternate suits as well as be in descending order.
Moving a card to the foundation
A card can be moved to the foundation if it matches the suit of the card currently in the foundatino in addition to being one step higher than the current card so that the pile stacks in ascending order.
Following the same rules above for cards moving to the foundation or tableau, cards are also able to be moved from the tableau to the foundation.
It is also important to note that cards can also be moved from the foundation to the tableau. However, once cards have been moved from the wastepile to either the foundation or tableau they are unable to be moved back into the wastepile. For online solitaire you are only able to move cards back through the “undo” button which will reset your game to a previous state before that card had been moved off the wastepile.
Tricks to win at solitaire
These are some good strategies that you can use to help you win move solitaire games.
- Focus on the biggest column of cards to move cards off of as soon as possible
- If you come across a ace or two, play it to the foundation
- A column should remain filled unless you have a king to place in the column
- Make sure you think through future moves before playing your kings