Playable Solitaire variant
Yukon Solitaire
- Objective
- Move all 52 cards to the four foundations from Ace to King by suit.
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Win rate
- Roughly 80% of Yukon deals are winnable with full undo and careful planning.
How to play Yukon Solitaire
A standard 52-card deck. Seven columns are dealt with hidden cards underneath the top — column 1 has one card, column 2 has six cards (one face-up plus extra), and so on, with cards distributed so that columns 2–7 each receive four additional face-up cards.
- Move any face-up card — along with every card stacked below it, regardless of sequence — onto a column whose top card is one rank higher and the opposite color.
- A King (with everything below it) can be moved onto any empty column.
- Send cards one at a time to the four foundations in ascending order from Ace to King by suit.
- There is no stock pile and no recycling — every move must come from existing tableau positions.
- Hidden cards flip face-up only when no card covers them.
Objective and winning
Move all 52 cards to the four foundations from Ace to King by suit.
A typical Yukon win takes 100–150 moves. Aggressive use of undo to test branching multi-card moves is the fastest path from a stuck mid-game to a clear board.
Scoring on vSolitaire
vSolitaire awards +1 for every valid move and +10 per card sent to the foundations, with a +100 win bonus when all 52 cards are placed. There is no stock-draw penalty.
Strategy tips
- Expose face-down cards before chasing foundation plays. Hidden information is the real obstacle in Yukon, not foundation order.
- Plan multi-card moves backward from the card you actually need to free.
- Resist the urge to send Aces and 2s up immediately when they are useful as anchors for unpacking long stacks.
- Empty columns are king. A free column can park any King-led stack and unlock a hidden run elsewhere.
- Watch which cards are buried. If both black 6s sit at the bottom of two different columns, you need a red 7 plan, not a red 5 plan.
Common mistakes
- Sending foundation cards too early and stranding tableau-building options.
- Splitting a long descending run to grab a single card, then losing the ability to re-form it.
- Ignoring buried Aces — every Ace must come out to win.
Difficulty and odds
Yukon is more forgiving than Klondike because every card is visible from the start, but the loose group-move rule makes deep planning essential. Random deals solve around 80–85% of the time with strong play.
Origin and history
Yukon dates to mid-20th-century North American patience books and gained a cult following in the early Windows era as an offline alternative to Klondike. Its loose group-move rule rewards players who enjoy Klondike's tableau but find the stock pile too restrictive.
Yukon Solitaire in multiplayer
Yukon races well because the opening tableau is fully visible after the deal. Same-deal score and time comparisons isolate planning skill from shuffle luck.
Frequently asked questions
How is Yukon different from Klondike?
Yukon has no stock pile — every card is dealt to the tableau at the start. Its key rule is that you can move any face-up card together with the entire stack below it, regardless of whether that stack is in sequence.
Is Yukon Solitaire winnable?
Most of the time. Standard Yukon win rates sit around 80% with full undo and careful play, considerably higher than Draw 3 Klondike.
Can a stack be moved even if the lower cards are out of sequence?
Yes. That is the defining Yukon rule. Only the top card of the moving stack needs to be a legal target for the destination — the rest of the stack rides along.
Does Yukon have a stock or recycle pile?
No. Every card is on the tableau from the opening deal, and there are no extra draws available.