Rules
Yukon Solitaire rules at a glance
- Use one standard 52-card deck.
- Deal all cards into seven tableau columns.
- There is no stock pile, waste pile, reserve, or redeal.
- Foundations build upward by suit from ace to king.
- Tableau cards build downward by alternating color.
- Any face-up card may move with every card above it, even if that packet is unordered.
- Only the leading card of a packet has to fit the destination.
- Empty tableau columns accept kings or packets led by kings.
- Face-down cards flip open when they become the top card of a column.
- Win by moving all 52 cards to the foundations.
How to play
How to play Yukon Solitaire
Yukon Solitaire is a foundation-building game with unusually generous tableau movement. Your goal is familiar: move each suit to its foundation from ace through king. The path is less familiar, because every card starts in the tableau and there is no stock pile waiting to rescue the position.
Choose a face-up card in a column, then move that card and everything above it as one packet. The card you touched is the only card that has to match the destination. If it is a red 6, it can move onto a black 7, even if the cards riding above that 6 are a jack, a 3, and another red card. That freedom is the heart of Yukon.
Background
What is Yukon Solitaire?
Yukon is a one-deck patience game in the Klondike family, but it plays with a different kind of pressure. Klondike gives you a stock and asks you to time the waste pile. Yukon gives you all the cards immediately and asks you to use large packet moves without losing control of the tableau.
That makes Yukon feel more open and more volatile than classic Solitaire. You can uncover a hidden card with one bold transfer, then discover that the same transfer dragged three awkward cards into a column you needed for something else. The game rewards planning, but it also rewards the courage to disturb a messy tableau when a buried card matters.
Setup
The Yukon layout on this page
- Column 1 starts with one face-up card.
- Columns 2 through 7 start with a staircase of hidden cards under five face-up cards.
- The hidden-card counts are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 from left to right.
- The face-up counts are 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, and 5 from left to right.
- All 52 cards are dealt before play begins.
Deal
Yukon Solitaire setup by column
Yukon looks like Klondike at first glance, but the deal is much heavier. The first 28 cards create the familiar seven-column staircase. Then the remaining 24 cards are placed face up onto columns two through seven, four extra face-up cards per column. The result is a table full of visible opportunities and 21 hidden cards underneath.
Column 11 card1 face up
Column 26 cards1 down, 5 up
Column 37 cards2 down, 5 up
Column 48 cards3 down, 5 up
Column 59 cards4 down, 5 up
Column 610 cards5 down, 5 up
Column 711 cards6 down, 5 up
Packet moves
The rule that makes Yukon different
In Klondike, a moved stack must already be a clean descending alternating-color sequence. Yukon removes that restriction. A packet can be untidy. The only question is whether the leading card, the card you selected, can legally land on the destination card.
Example: suppose a column contains a face-up red 6 with several random cards above it. If another column has a black 7 on top, the red 6 and every card above it can move to that black 7. The cards riding along do not have to fit each other. They are cargo, not a sequence requirement.
This freedom is powerful because it lets you clear the cards above a hidden card quickly. It is also dangerous because you can carry clutter into a column that was previously clean. Good Yukon play uses packet moves to reveal cards, not merely to move mess from one side of the board to the other.
Examples
Legal and illegal Yukon moves
Tableau building still follows a strict front-card rule. Red cards land on black cards one rank higher, and black cards land on red cards one rank higher. A 9 of clubs can accept an 8 of hearts or 8 of diamonds. It cannot accept another black 8, a red 9, or a red 7.
Legal6 of hearts onto 7 of clubs
LegalA messy packet led by a queen onto a king
LegalKing-led packet into an empty column
Illegal8 onto 7
IllegalSame-color build
BlockedFace-down cards cannot move
Empty columns are king spaces in this version. A bare king can move to an empty column, and so can any face-up packet led by a king. A queen-led packet cannot fill an empty column even if the cards above that queen contain a king somewhere in the middle.
Foundations
How foundations work
The four foundations build upward by suit. Aces start foundations, twos follow aces, and each suit climbs in order until king. Only a single top card can move to a foundation. A buried card, or a card carrying other cards above it, cannot go straight there.
Foundation moves are not always automatic. Moving an ace is almost always helpful, but a 6 or 7 might still be useful in the tableau as a landing place for an opposite-color packet. If a card is holding the tableau together, think before sending it away.
No stock
What no stock pile changes
Yukon has no draw pile, no waste pile, and no redeal. You cannot wait for a missing card to cycle around later. Every available card is already somewhere in the tableau, either visible or buried under cards that need to move.
That makes the hidden cards more important than the visible clutter. The visible cards are your tools. The hidden cards are the locked doors. Most strong moves either open a hidden card, prepare an empty column, or create a landing place that will open a hidden card soon.
Strategy
Yukon Solitaire strategy that actually changes the board
Start by looking for moves that reveal a face-down card. Yukon offers many legal packet moves, but not all legal moves improve the deal. A move that uncovers a hidden card gives you new information, a new potential foundation card, and often a new landing place. A move that only rearranges visible cards may look busy without making progress.
Empty columns are precious. Because only kings can fill them, an empty column is best used to move a king-led packet that unlocks more hidden cards or organizes a large section of the tableau. Filling a space with the first king you see can block later progress if that king brings a weak packet with it.
Watch the connectors. Medium ranks such as 6, 7, 8, and 9 often become bridges for large packets. Moving one to a foundation too early can strand an opposite-color card that needed it as a landing place. On the other hand, leaving low cards in the tableau too long can delay foundation progress and trap aces or twos underneath.
When two moves both uncover a card, prefer the move that leaves the cleaner front card on top of the destination column. Yukon lets you carry disorder, but the visible tops of the columns still determine what can move next.
Mistakes
Common Yukon Solitaire mistakes
- Treating Yukon packets like Klondike sequences and missing legal moves.
- Moving a large packet because it is legal, even though it reveals nothing.
- Filling an empty column before a useful king-led packet is ready.
- Sending a middle card to the foundation while it is still needed as a tableau connector.
- Ignoring face-down cards under columns with many movable face-up cards.
- Assuming the visible tableau is safe just because many moves are available.
Winnability
Is Yukon Solitaire winnable?
Yukon Solitaire is not always winnable from a random shuffle. The game gives you more freedom than Klondike, but hidden cards can still appear in the wrong order, and an early empty-column mistake can leave a key king or low foundation card trapped.
This page does not claim a fixed win rate because an honest number should come from this exact implementation and a large set of measured deals. Rule choices such as king-only spaces, undo, and how hints are used all change the practical difficulty.
Difficulty
How difficult is Yukon Solitaire?
Yukon is easy to learn once the packet rule clicks, but it is not a casual automatic win. The high number of face-up cards makes the game feel generous. The hidden staircase under columns two through seven makes it demanding. You often have enough choices that the problem becomes choosing the move that matters.
Compared with Klondike, Yukon removes stock luck but adds tableau responsibility. Compared with FreeCell, Yukon hides important cards and has no free cells to park single cards. It sits in a satisfying middle: open enough for planning, hidden enough to stay tense.
Variants
Yukon variants and related rules
The most important variant family changes tableau building. Standard Yukon, including this page, builds down by alternating color. Russian Solitaire is stricter: it builds down by suit, which makes landing places much harder to find. Alaska is stranger and more flexible, allowing same-suit building both up and down in the tableau.
Some digital Yukon games add auto-move, scoring, timed challenges, or winnable-only deals. This page keeps the rules direct: no stock, no redeal, king-only spaces, foundations by suit, and free packet movement from any face-up card.
Nearby games
How Yukon compares with Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, and Scorpion
Yukon and Klondike share seven tableau columns and suit foundations, but Yukon has no stock. If you dislike waiting for the draw pile, Yukon puts the whole problem in front of you immediately. If you enjoy waste-pile timing, Klondike will feel more rhythmic.
FreeCell is more transparent because every card starts visible and temporary free cells create exact planning space. Spider is wider and more sequence-focused, especially when full king-to-ace runs clear from the tableau. Scorpion is a close cousin to Yukon in spirit: large stacks move, hidden cards matter, and one dramatic transfer can reshape the board.