Solitaire Strategy

Solitaire is not purely a game of chance. While the shuffle determines which cards are available, your decisions determine whether you win or lose. The same deal can be solved or squandered depending on how you approach it. These strategy tips are ordered from the most fundamental habit — the one that matters most — down to more advanced tactics you can apply once the basics are solid.

The Single Most Important Rule: Uncover Hidden Cards First

Every face-down card on the tableau is a card you cannot use. The faster you flip face-down cards, the more options you have, and the better your chances of winning. When two moves are both legal and seem equally good, always choose the one that reveals a hidden card over one that simply shuffles cards that are already visible.

This principle sounds simple, but it has real consequences. Experienced players scan the tableau and ask: “Which column has the most hidden cards beneath the face-up card I can move?” They prioritise uncovering those deep columns first, even when there are easier moves available elsewhere on the board.

Do Not Rush Low Cards to the Foundation

Sending an Ace or a 2 to the foundation the instant you see it feels productive — and usually it is. But cards on the foundation are removed from play permanently. A 2 sitting on the Hearts foundation cannot help you uncover a tableau column later.

The practical rule is: Aces should almost always go to the foundation immediately. 2s and 3s usually should too, because they are rarely useful on the tableau. But once you are dealing with 4s, 5s, and 6s, think before you move. Ask whether that card is doing useful work on the tableau — helping build a sequence that will let you uncover something — before sending it up. If not, move it to the foundation. If so, leave it in place until you have what you need.

Treat Empty Columns as a Resource, Not a Problem to Fill

Clearing a tableau column to empty is a significant achievement in Solitaire. Most players feel an immediate urge to fill that empty space with the nearest available King. Resist this urge.

An empty column is temporary storage. It lets you move a card — or even a partial sequence — out of the way so you can reorganise a different column. This kind of shuffle-and-reorganise play is often the only way to break a stuck board. If you fill the empty column the moment it appears, you lose that flexibility immediately.

When should you put a King into an empty column? When you have a specific King that will lead to uncovering hidden cards below it in another column — not just because the space is there and you have a King available.

Plan Your Draws — Do Not Just Click the Stock Whenever You Are Stuck

The stock pile is not a slot machine. Many players click it reflexively whenever they do not see an obvious move, burning through cards without thinking about what they are looking for. This is one of the most common reasons players lose winnable games.

Before you draw from the stock, scan the tableau first. Is there a move you have not made yet? Is there a card in the waste pile you could use if you moved something else first? Drawing should be a deliberate choice when you have genuinely exhausted your current options — not a reflex.

In Hard and Hardest mode, this discipline is especially important because you have a limited number of passes through the deck. Every draw you make without having played a card first is a small waste of a finite resource.

Build Columns Down from the Same Colour Where You Can

Solitaire requires alternating colours, so you cannot build a run of all-red or all-black. But within that constraint, you have some flexibility in which specific cards go where. When you have a choice of which red card to place on a black card, try to keep cards of the same suit together in a sequence where possible. It is not always achievable, but when it is, it tends to make sequences easier to move to the foundation in order later.

Kings Are Not Equal — Choose Carefully

Not every King is equally valuable in an empty column. A King with a good sequence already built below it is worth more than a lone King sitting on the waste pile. Before placing a King in an empty column, consider: which King has the longest valid sequence attached to it, and which one is sitting on top of hidden cards that need to be uncovered? Lead with the King that does the most useful work.

When to Use Undo

Using Undo is not cheating — it is a thinking tool. The best use of Undo is when you realise a move was premature. If you sent a card to the foundation and then found you needed it on the tableau, Undo immediately. If you moved a sequence and blocked yourself from a better move you can now see, Undo is exactly right.

The less useful pattern is undoing moves repeatedly as a way to search for a winning line randomly. That approach tends to lead to the same stuck board again. When you are genuinely stuck, Undo two or three moves and think from there — but if the board was stuck before those moves, undoing them usually reveals the same stuck position slightly earlier. At that point, a new game may be the honest answer.

Hints Are a Teaching Tool

The Hint button on this site highlights a suggested move, but it does not explain why that move is good. Try to figure out why the hint makes sense before following it. Over time this habit builds your own pattern-recognition, which is far more useful than simply following hints every time you are unsure. Once you can predict what the hint will suggest before pressing it, you are playing at a level where hints are no longer necessary.

How to Approach a Stuck Board

Even on a verified-winnable deal, there are board states where no move seems to help. Here is a useful checklist for those moments:

Have you looked at every face-up card in every column, not just the first one or two you noticed?
Is there a card in the waste pile you missed?
Can you use an empty column to temporarily move part of a sequence and free up something below it?
Is there a foundation card you could briefly move back to the tableau to unlock a sequence? (This is allowed in the rules and is sometimes the only path forward.)
Have you drawn from the stock recently? If not, is the next card in the waste pile useful if you move the right thing first?

If none of these unlock anything, try using Undo to retrace your last few moves and look for the fork in the road where a different choice would have led somewhere better.

Spider Solitaire Strategy

Build Same-Suit Sequences Whenever Possible

In Spider, you can place any card on any card that is one rank higher — suit does not matter for placement. But only a same-suit sequence can be moved together as a group. Mixed-suit sequences are trapped in place. The most common Spider mistake is building colourful, mixed-suit sequences that look tidy but cannot be moved or cleared. Prioritise same-suit building even when it is inconvenient.

Never Fill an Empty Column Before You Have a Plan

Empty columns in Spider are even more valuable than in Solitaire because the board has ten columns and the sequences are longer. An empty column lets you unscramble mixed-suit piles. Do not deal from the stock until every empty column is filled — the game rules prevent you from doing so anyway — but more importantly, do not waste your empty columns filling them with random cards before you have made use of the space strategically.

Be Cautious on Hard and Hardest

Two-suit and four-suit Spider are genuinely hard games. On Hardest (4 suits), even experienced players lose regularly. The key discipline is patience: never make a move just to make a move. Every placement that mixes suits is potentially a permanent obstacle. Take your time, and do not hesitate to use Undo.