Klondike Solitaire Strategy Guide

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Tournament Games
Strategy Guides

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Klondike Solitaire

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Klondike Solitaire, such as Tournament Solitaire or SoliDroid, is a classic card game consisting of 28 cards on the playing field. They are arranged into 7 piles of face-down cards with one card at the end of each pile that is turned face-up. The rest of the cards are placed into the draw pile. The object is to manipulate the cards by placing them in descending order while alternating colors on the playing field stacks, and then to move them in ascending order by suit, starting with the Aces, onto the 4 discard piles.

Strategies

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• During the game always place an ace or a two in the discard pile immediately, or with the deuce when the move is available.
• When you have a choice always choose the play that would allow for a card to be turned face-up on the playing field.
• Do not empty a column on the playing field unless you have a King to place into it. Leaving these cards separate increases the amount of possible moves you may have to choose from.
• If you have a choice between two face-down cards that could be turned up, always choose to turn up the card on the largest stack of down-facing cards.
• Only add a card to build upon your deuce in a discard pile if the play will allow you to turn up a face-down card, clears a spot for a king you have waiting, or in some way leads to more available moves. (*Adding cards to the discard too early can lead to being stuck because of a need for them later.Explained more below under Providing Protection.)
• When making any move, try to think ahead to where the move will lead you in terms of available moves and potential options.
• When you become stuck and you cannot make any further moves at all, always immediately move all available cards to the discard piles that can be moved.

Providing Protection

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The most important thing within the game of solitaire is the strategy of providing protection. You should always choose wisely when you are deciding whether or not to place cards in the discard pile. As stated above, always immediately place Aces onto the discard pile, and place deuces whenever you can onto the discard pile. However, you should always be careful that when you choose to place a higher card onto the discard pile that you will not need it later. If you:

• 1) have already placed the cards on the discard piles that would require that card to be played on the playing field (ie. the two cards of the opposite color that are one value less.)
  or
• 2) you have the same value card, that is the same color open on the playing field

...then it is usually safe to place that card onto the discard pile. Otherwise, you could be risking finding a need for that card later and/or find that without that card you can no longer make any moves in the game.