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What are the rules of Solitaire

There are a great many varieties of Solitaire and Patience games, but the rules for the most commonly played game - the one popularized by Microsoft - are relatively straightforward.
poster showing boxing rules

Solitaire is played with a single deck of 52 cards. The deck is made up of 4 sets of 13 cards, each Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades.

Card value begins with the Ace (1 - lowest) end ends with the King (13 - highest):

Ace-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-King

Solitaire game setup

After shuffling the cards, the player creates 7 piles, called the Tableau. The Tableau piles are placed side by side and only the top card in each pile is turned face up.

To setup the Tableau piles:

  1. Place 1 card face up to make the first pile, and 6 cards face down to the right, to form a total of 7 piles.

  2. Place 1 card face up in the second pile, and 1 card face down in each of the 5 piles to the right.

  3. Place 1 card face up in the third pile, and 1 card face down in each of the 4 piles to the right.

  4. And so on until the right most pile has 7 cards, with the top card face up.

The remainder of the cards are placed face down in the top-left corner, and are called the Stock. These cards are flipped during the game to form a new pile called the Waste (also known as the Talon or Discard pile).

Example card layout

Solitaire gameplay

The goal of the game is to move all cards from the Stock and Tableau to the Foundations. At the end of a successful game, each Foundation will include all 13 cards of a particular suit in order from the Ace (value 1) on the bottom to the King on top.

Possible moves:

  • Waste->Stock (and back to Waste once it’s empty)

  • Stock->Tableau

  • Stock->Foundations

  • Tableau->Foundations

  • Tableau->Tableau

Moving cards to - or within - the Tableau:

Cards may be moved from the Waste to a Tableau pile or between the Tableau piles subject to the following rules:

  • Face up cards in each Tableau pile must be placed in ascending order (with the lowest card on top) and in alternating suit color (i.e. red, black, red, … etc.).

  • The first card in an empty Tableau pile must be a King.

Moving cards to the Foundations:

Cards may be moved from the Waste or Tableau pile to the Foundations subject to the following rules:

  • Each Foundation pile must only contain cards of a single suit.

  • The cards on a Foundation pile must be placed in ascending order, beginning with the Ace (value 1) and ending with the King.

Winning the game

The game is won when all of the cards have been moved to the Foundations.

It is estimated that about 80% of Solitaire games are winnable, although the difficulty of winning varies greatly.

How does Solitaire scoring work?

Learn about Solitaire scoring here.