How to Set Up Solitaire With Real Cards

What you need

The game usually called Solitaire is Klondike, the version most people know from computers. You need one standard 52-card deck with the jokers removed, and a table with room for a row of seven cards plus a row above it. That's all.

How to deal Solitaire, step by step

1. Shuffle the deck well. After a finished game the cards are sorted by suit, so give them several good shuffles.
2. First pass: deal one card face up to start the first column on the left. Then deal one card face down to each of the six spots to its right. You now have seven columns of one card each.
3. Second pass: skip the first column. Deal one card face up onto the second column, then one face down onto each of columns three to seven.
4. Keep going: each pass starts one column further right, with the first card face up and the rest face down. On the seventh pass you deal a single face-up card onto the seventh column.
5. Check: the columns should hold 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 cards, each with exactly one face-up card on top. That's 28 cards.
6. Stock: put the remaining 24 cards face down above the first column. Leave a space beside it for the waste pile (the cards you turn over).
7. Foundations: leave four spaces above the right-hand columns, one for each suit. They start empty.

Dealing one card per column per pass is the traditional method. If you'd rather deal each column in one go, that's fine with a well-shuffled deck: deal the cards face down and turn the top one over at the end.

The names of each part

So when people ask how many rows are in Solitaire, the answer is seven columns in the tableau (some people call them rows or piles), plus the stock, waste and four foundations above.

How to play once it's set up

• Goal: move all 52 cards onto the four foundations, each suit from Ace up to King.
• Building in the tableau: place a card on a face-up card one rank higher and of the opposite colour. A red 9 goes on a black 10; a black 6 goes on a red 7.
• Moving runs: you can move a whole run of face-up cards together, as long as its bottom card fits where you put it.
• Turning cards: when you move the last face-up card off a column, turn the face-down card beneath it face up.
• Empty columns: only a King, or a run that starts with a King, can go into an empty column.
• The stock: turn cards from the stock onto the waste. The top waste card can go to the tableau or a foundation. When the stock runs out, turn the waste pile over to make a new stock.

Draw 1 or draw 3?

In draw 1, you turn one card from the stock at a time, and every card comes up on each pass. In draw 3, you turn three at a time and can only play the top one, so some cards stay buried until the order shifts. Draw 1 is easier and the better choice while you're learning. Some house rules, and scoring systems like Vegas, also limit how many times you can go through the stock.

Common setup mistakes

• Too many cards face up. Only the top card of each column starts face up.
• Wrong count. If the stock isn't 24 cards, a column has the wrong number. Recount: 1 to 7.
• Columns built the wrong way. The column with one card is on the left and the one with seven is on the right (mirroring it doesn't change the game, but it's the standard layout everyone describes).
• Leaving the jokers in. Classic Solitaire uses 52 cards.

Want to skip the shuffling? GameLake deals for you, with draw 1 on Easy and the Daily, draw 3 on Medium and Hard, and every deal checked by a solver so it can be won. When you're ready for strategy, read how to win Solitaire.

Frequently asked questions

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