Yukon Solitaire lets you move any face-up card together with everything stacked on top of it, and there is no stock to fall back on. Play Yukon Solitaire free in your browser — no download, no account.
How You WinBuild all four suits from ace to king on the foundations, using seven tableau columns and no stock at all.
- Layout
- 7 columns · 52 cards dealt · no stock
- Deal shape
- 1 card, then 5 face-up over 1 to 6 face-down
- Stacking
- Alternating colours · Russian same suit · Alaska same suit, both directions
Yukon Setup: Seven Columns and No Stock at All
- Tableau: all fifty-two cards in seven columns. The first holds a single face-up card; each later column adds one more face-down card beneath five face-up ones — 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards.
- Foundations: four empty piles built up in suit from ace to king. A foundation card may be pulled back into the tableau, which is a real endgame resource here.
- There is no stock and no waste pile. Nothing new ever arrives, so the only fresh information comes from uncovering the face-down cards already in the columns.
- That single omission is what separates Yukon from Klondike more than any stacking rule: a dead end in Yukon is genuinely dead.
Complete Rules
- All fifty-two cards are dealt into seven columns. The first holds a single face-up card; each later column adds one more face-down card under five face-up ones.
- Any face-up card may be moved, together with every card above it, regardless of whether those cards are in order. This is the rule that defines Yukon.
- Under the standard rule the destination must be one rank higher and the opposite colour. Russian requires the same suit; Alaska requires the same suit but accepts one rank higher or one rank lower.
- An empty column accepts only a king, along with anything stacked on it.
- Foundations build upward in suit from ace to king. A foundation card may be brought back into the tableau when a legal spot exists.
- Uncovering a face-down card turns it face up automatically. That is the only way new information appears — there is no stock to turn.
- The deal is won when all four foundations reach the king, and lost when no legal move remains.
- Because there is no stock, every card is visible from the start except those still face down in the columns, and their number only ever decreases.
Yukon Variants: Yukon, Russian and Alaska
- Yukon is the standard game: stack downward in alternating colours, exactly as in Klondike, but move any face-up card with everything piled on top of it.
- Russian requires the same suit instead of the opposite colour. That roughly halves the destinations for every card and is widely regarded as one of the harder classic patiences.
- Alaska also requires the same suit but lets a pile run both up and down — a nine of diamonds may go on the eight or the ten. The extra direction gives back some of what Russian takes away, at the cost of trapping cards in the middle of a suit.
- All three keep the move-any-stack rule and the missing stock. Only the stacking test changes, and published win rates suggest the spread between them is large.
Your First Game
- Read the whole tableau before the first move. With no stock, the position you are given is the entire problem and nothing new will arrive to bail you out.
- Prioritise uncovering face-down cards, especially in the rightmost columns where six of them are stacked.
- Use the move-any-stack rule deliberately. Relocating an ugly heap onto a card that can hold it is often better than trying to sort it in place.
- Do not send everything to the foundations. Cards in the tableau are landing spots, and unlike FreeCell you can bring a foundation card back down here if you need it.
- Try standard Yukon before Russian. Same-suit stacking halves your options, and it is a much harsher game to learn on.
Practical Strategy
- Aim to empty a column, then hold it for a king that unlocks something. An empty column with no plan attached is worth much less here than in FreeCell.
- Watch which cards sit above the deepest face-down stack. That column decides the deal, and every move should be measured against whether it helps open it.
- In Russian and Alaska, count the suit rather than the colour. Needing a specific suited card rather than either of two colours changes which chains are actually live.
- Alaska's two-way stacking is not a free gift: a pile that runs up as well as down can trap cards in the middle of a suit, so build with an exit in mind.
- When a move only tidies the surface, skip it. Yukon punishes cosmetic reordering because there is no stock to buy back the tempo.
Winning and Special Rules
- The three stacking rules are settings on one game rather than three separate entries, so switching between Yukon, Russian and Alaska keeps everything else where you left it.
- Yukon deals carry no solvability guarantee, and the table labels every deal accordingly. Unlike Klondike or Pyramid, no third-party solver exists to build a verified library from.
- Our own search reaches a solution on only a minority of Yukon deals, which is not good enough to filter with. Filtering on a weak solver would bias the deals toward the easy ones — worse than not filtering at all.
- Because every card is dealt to the table at the start, a Yukon position never gains information you did not already have — uncovering a face-down card is the only thing that ever changes what you know.
- Foundation cards may be pulled back into the tableau, which is a real endgame resource in Yukon and is easy to forget.
Common Mistakes
- Playing it as Klondike. Waiting to tidy a column before moving it wastes the one rule that makes Yukon work.
- Emptying a column with no king in sight. There is no stock to turn up one, so the slot can stay useless for the rest of the deal.
- Rushing aces and twos to the foundations. They are gone from the tableau for good unless a legal return spot exists later.
- Starting with Russian because it sounds like a variant of the same difficulty. Same-suit stacking is a far harder game.
- Expecting the deal to be winnable. Many Yukon deals are not, and the interface tells you it is not promising otherwise.
How Difficult Is Yukon Solitaire?
Standard Yukon sits between Klondike and Spider. The move-any-stack rule is generous and most deals open up quickly, but with no stock there is no second chance: one wasted sequence can end a deal that was fine three moves earlier.
Russian Solitaire is substantially harder. Requiring the same suit rather than the opposite colour roughly halves the destinations for every card, and it is widely regarded as one of the harder classic patiences. Alaska sits between the two, since stacking in both directions restores some of the lost flexibility.
We cannot tell you what share of Yukon deals are winnable, and neither can anyone else. Yukon has no established solver — the broad research solvers that cover Klondike, FreeCell and several other games do not implement it — so no trustworthy figure exists to quote.
That is why deals here are dealt at random and labelled as unverified. It is the honest option: filtering with a weak solver would quietly remove the hard deals and change what the game is.
Yukon Solitaire FAQ
What makes Yukon different from Klondike?
Two things. Any face-up card can be moved with everything stacked on top of it, in any order, and there is no stock — every card is dealt to the tableau at the start. Together they turn Klondike's digging problem into a planning problem.
What is Russian Solitaire?
Yukon with same-suit stacking instead of alternating colours. It is considerably harder, because a card can only land on the one suit rather than the two colours.
What is Alaska Solitaire?
Yukon with same-suit stacking that runs both up and down: a nine of diamonds may go on the eight or the ten of diamonds. The extra direction gives back some of what Russian takes away.
Can anything go in an empty column?
Only a king, together with whatever is stacked on it. That holds in all three stacking rules.
What is the difference between Yukon and Klondike?
Two things, and both matter more than they sound. In Klondike a group of cards moves only if it is already a proper descending run; in Yukon any face-up card moves with everything on top of it, ordered or not. And Klondike has a stock to turn when you are stuck, while Yukon has none — every card is dealt to the table at the start.
Are Yukon deals verified solvable?
No, and the table says so. There is no established Yukon solver anywhere — not even the broad research solvers cover it — so we deal honest random games instead of pretending to a guarantee we cannot make.