Honestly, there’s something almost meditative about the sound of a deck being shuffled when the house is quiet. Most people think they know how to play solitaire with cards by yourself, but then they sit down with a physical deck and realize they’ve forgotten where the fourth pile goes or whether a King can move to an empty space. It’s a classic for a reason. Before the internet turned it into a pre-installed distraction on Windows 95, it was a tactile, frustrating, and deeply satisfying way to pass the time.
Solitaire isn't just one game. Usually, when people ask about it, they’re talking about "Klondike." That’s the version where you’re building piles of cards in alternating colors. It’s harder than it looks. In fact, mathematically, about 80% of Klondike games are theoretically winnable, but because we don't have X-ray vision to see what's under the face-down cards, we actually win way less often.
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Setting Up the Tableau (The Part Everyone Messes Up)
Grab a standard 52-card deck. Leave the Jokers in the box; they have no power here.
You’re going to create seven columns. This is called the "Tableau." Start by placing one card face up on the far left. Then, place six cards face down to the right of it. Now, go back to the second column and put one card face up on top of the face-down card. Put five more face-down cards to the right. You keep doing this—stair-stepping the piles—until the seventh column has six face-down cards and one face-up card on top.
By the end, you should have 28 cards on the table. The remaining 24 cards stay in your hand. This is your "Stock" or "Draw" pile.
The Layout at a Glance
The first pile has 1 card. The second has 2. The third has 3. It continues until the seventh pile has 7. Only the top card of each pile is ever face up at the start. It looks like a lopsided triangle of mystery. If yours looks like a messy rectangle, you've probably added too many cards somewhere. Take a breath and recount.
The Rules of Engagement
The goal is deceptively simple: move all the cards to the "Foundations." These are four empty spots above your columns where you build up each suit from Ace to King.
But you can’t just grab an Ace from the middle of a pile whenever you feel like it. You have to earn it. On the Tableau, you move cards by placing them in descending order and alternating colors. So, a Red 9 goes on a Black 10. A Black 4 goes on a Red 5. You can move entire sequences of cards too. If you have a Red 6, Black 5, and Red 4 stacked together, you can pick up that whole chunk and move it onto a Black 7.
Here is the kicker: If you clear out an entire column, only a King can fill that empty space. This is where most people get stuck. They clear a spot early, but they don't have a King ready to go, and they've effectively wasted a column.
Dealing with the Stock Pile
When you run out of moves on the board, you turn to the cards in your hand. There are two main ways to do this, and people get very heated about which one is "correct."
- Draw Three: You flip over three cards at once and place them on a "Waste" pile. You can only use the top card of those three. If you use it, the one underneath becomes available. This is the "standard" way and it's much harder.
- Draw One: You flip one card at a time. It’s basically Solitaire on "Easy Mode." If you're just learning how to play solitaire with cards by yourself, start here. There's no shame in it.
Microsoft’s digital version popularized the "Draw Three" rule because it adds a layer of strategy. You have to think about which cards will be "unlocked" on the next pass through the deck.
The Strategy: Why You Keep Losing
Most people lose because they are too fast. They see a move and they take it.
Don't do that.
Before you move a card from the Tableau, look at your Draw pile. If you have a Black 8 in the columns and a Black 8 in your hand, which one should you use to cover a Red 9? Almost always, you should move the one from the columns. Why? Because the goal isn't just to stack cards; it's to uncover the face-down cards hiding in your columns. Those face-down cards are the enemy. If you don't flip them over, you'll never win.
Hidden Nuances of the Game
- The Ace Priority: As soon as an Ace appears, move it to the Foundation. There is almost zero tactical reason to keep an Ace on the Tableau.
- The King Dilemma: Don’t empty a column just because you can. If you don’t have a King waiting in the wings, that empty spot is a graveyard for your progress.
- Even Distribution: Try to keep your columns roughly the same height. If you have one massive tower and five empty spots, you’re limiting your options.
Does Luck Actually Matter?
Yes. A lot.
Unlike Chess or Go, Solitaire is a game of imperfect information. You don't know where the Queen of Hearts is. She might be at the very bottom of the sixth column, buried under five face-down cards. If that's the case, you might be doomed from the start regardless of how well you play.
In a study by mathematician Irving Kaplansky, it was suggested that the odds of winning a standard game of Klondike are roughly 1 in 30 for the average player. Experts can get that up to about 1 in 9. It’s a game of persistence.
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Variations to Keep It Fresh
If you get bored of the standard game, there are hundreds of ways to pivot.
Spider Solitaire is the big brother of Klondike. You use two decks. It’s brutal. You’re trying to build sequences of the same suit from King down to Ace. If you play with all four suits, the difficulty curve is vertical.
Then there’s FreeCell. This one is unique because almost every single game is winnable. You have four "free cells" where you can temporarily park cards. It removes a lot of the luck and turns the game into a pure logic puzzle. If you hate the feeling of losing because of a bad shuffle, FreeCell is your best friend.
Why We Still Play with Physical Cards
In 2026, we’re surrounded by screens. We have VR headsets and AI assistants. So why sit at a wooden table with a $3 deck of cards?
There’s a tactile satisfaction that a screen can’t replicate. The "snap" of the card stock. The physical act of smoothing out the piles. It forces a different kind of focus. When you play on a phone, you can "undo" a move with a tap. When you play with real cards, an "undo" feels like cheating. It raises the stakes. You live with your mistakes.
Learning how to play solitaire with cards by yourself is a lesson in patience. It’s just you against the math. Sometimes the math wins. That’s okay.
The Actionable Roadmap to Your First Win
If you want to actually win your next game, follow this specific order of operations:
- Step 1: Survey the board for any Aces or Deuces (2s). Move them immediately.
- Step 2: Always prioritize moves that reveal a face-down card. If you have two choices for where to move a Red 7, choose the move that uncovers a card in the tallest column.
- Step 3: Only use the Draw pile when you are completely out of moves on the Tableau.
- Step 4: If you're playing the "Draw Three" rule, count your cards. Since 24 cards are in the Stock, you'll see the same cards in the same order unless you pull one out. If you pull one card, the "rotation" of the remaining cards changes. This is the secret to high-level play.
- Step 5: Don't build your Foundations too fast. Sometimes you need a Red 5 on the Tableau to hold a Black 4. If you've already sent that Red 5 to the top, you're stuck.
The beauty of Solitaire is that the deck doesn't care if you win. It's a quiet, private challenge. Shuffle the cards well—at least seven times for a truly random distribution—and see what the math gives you today.