Card Games for One: 16 Solo Games You Can Play With a Deck of Cards

You have a deck of cards and nobody to deal to. The good news is that single-player card games are one of the oldest and deepest corners of card play — there are hundreds of them, and all but a handful need nothing more than one standard 52-card deck.

A note on the word first, because it confuses people: "solitaire" is not one game. It is the umbrella term for any card game played alone (the British call the same family "patience"). The game most people picture — seven columns, four aces building up — is properly called Klondike. It is one game out of many, and far from the most interesting.

Below are 16 games worth knowing, with full rules for each. They are grouped by how much thinking they ask of you rather than alphabetically, so you can pick by mood.

Quick comparison

Five-minute games

1. Clock Patience — one deck, no decisions

Deal all 52 cards into 13 face-down piles of four: twelve arranged in a circle like the numbers on a clock face, and one in the centre. Turn up the top card of the centre pile. Slide it face up under the pile matching its rank — Ace goes to one o'clock, 2 to two o'clock, and so on, Queen to twelve, King to the centre. Then take the top face-down card from the pile you just fed, and repeat.

The game ends the moment you turn up the fourth King, because the centre pile has nothing left to feed. You win only if every card is already face up at that point. There is not a single decision in the entire game, which is precisely the appeal — it is a coin flip you deal out by hand. You will win roughly one game in thirteen.

2. Aces Up — one deck, two rules

Deal four cards face up in a row. If any two of them share a suit, discard the lower-ranked one (Aces count high, above Kings). Keep discarding while you can. When no discards remain, deal four more cards, one onto each pile, and look again — only the top card of each pile is ever in play.

If a pile empties, you may move any available top card into the gap, which is the only real decision in the game and usually the one that decides it. You win by finishing with just the four Aces left. Expect to win about one game in ten.

3. Golf — one deck, one long chain

Deal seven columns of five cards, all face up and overlapping so every card is readable. That is 35 cards; the remaining 17 form the stock. Turn one stock card face up to start the waste pile.

Any exposed card at the bottom of a column may be played onto the waste pile if it is exactly one rank above or below the current waste card. Suits are irrelevant. When you are stuck, turn up a new stock card and carry on. In the traditional rules the sequence does not wrap, so a King is a dead end and an Ace can only take a 2 — this is the whole difficulty of the game. You win by clearing all 35 tableau cards before the stock runs out.

4. TriPeaks — one deck, Golf with better chains

Same idea as Golf, laid out more elegantly. Build three overlapping pyramids of ten cards each (three peaks of 1–2–3 cards, sharing a bottom row of ten face-up cards), which uses 28 cards; the rest is stock. Play any fully exposed card that is one rank above or below the waste card.

Unlike Golf, most versions let the sequence wrap around, so King → Ace → 2 is legal in both directions. That single change turns the game from a grind into a chain-building exercise: a well-planned run can clear an entire peak in one uninterrupted sequence.

5. Monte Carlo — one deck, pair matching

Deal 25 cards face up in a five-by-five grid. Remove any two cards of equal rank that touch — horizontally, vertically or diagonally. When you run out of pairs, slide every remaining card up and to the left to close the gaps, keeping their order, then deal new cards from the stock to fill the grid back to 25.

You win by removing all 52 cards. It is gentle, forgiving and almost meditative; the only skill is choosing which of two possible pairs to break when a card could match in more than one direction.

The classics

6. Klondike — one deck, the default

Seven columns, containing one to seven cards; only the last card of each column is face up. The remaining 24 cards form the stock. Four foundations, one per suit, are built upward from Ace to King.

In the tableau you build downward in alternating colours — a red 8 onto a black 9. A properly sequenced run moves as a unit. Only a King may occupy an empty column. Draw from the stock one card at a time (the generous version) or three at a time (the standard one). You win when all 52 cards reach the foundations.

The single most common mistake is rushing cards to the foundations. A 4 sitting in the tableau can still accept a red 3; once it is on the foundation it can do nothing for you. Full details are in our Klondike rules guide, and you can play Klondike here — including a turn-3 version and an easier turn-1 version.

7. FreeCell — one deck, nothing hidden

All 52 cards are dealt face up into eight columns — four of seven cards and four of six. Above them sit four empty "free cells", each holding exactly one card, and the four foundations.

Build down in alternating colours, as in Klondike, but strictly one card at a time. In practice you move sequences by shuffling cards through the free cells, so the number of cards you can shift at once depends on how many cells and empty columns are free. Any card — not just a King — may go into an empty column.

Because nothing is hidden, FreeCell is a pure planning puzzle with no luck once the deal is set. Of the 32,000 numbered Microsoft deals, only game #11982 has been proven unsolvable. If you lose, you misplayed. Play FreeCell here or read the full FreeCell rules.

8. Pyramid — one deck, arithmetic

Deal 28 cards in a seven-row pyramid, each row overlapping the one below, so only the bottom row is fully exposed. The other 24 cards form the stock.

Remove pairs of fully exposed cards whose ranks add up to 13. Aces are 1, Jacks 11, Queens 12, and Kings are 13 — so a King is removed on its own. Turn stock cards up one at a time to pair against the pyramid. You win by dismantling the pyramid entirely.

The trap is greed: taking an easy pair early can bury the only card that could have freed a stuck corner later. Play Pyramid here or read the Pyramid rules.

Games that reward real planning

9. Yukon — one deck, move anything

Deal seven columns as in Klondike, but keep dealing until all 52 cards are out, so the columns hold long tails of face-up cards. There is no stock at all.

The defining rule: you may pick up any face-up card along with every card on top of it — ordered or not, a jumbled heap is fine — and drop the whole group onto a card one rank higher of the opposite colour. Only Kings fill empty columns.

That one freedom makes Yukon far more winnable than it looks. Most deals go your way if you consistently dig out the deepest face-down card rather than tidying up the surface.

10. Scorpion — one deck, Yukon with suits

Seven columns of seven cards; in the first four columns the top three cards are face down. The last three cards are held in reserve. As in Yukon, you move any face-up card with everything on top of it — but the destination must be one rank higher in the same suit. Kings go into empty columns, and the three reserve cards are dealt out when you are stuck.

You win by assembling four complete King-to-Ace runs of a single suit, in the tableau itself. The same-suit restriction makes this dramatically harder than Yukon, and early moves that bury a low card of the wrong suit are usually fatal.

11. Beleaguered Castle — one deck, everything visible

Pull the four Aces out and set them as foundations in a central column. Deal the remaining 48 cards into eight rows of six, fanned out to the left and right of the Aces, all face up.

Only the outermost card of each row is in play. Build down in the tableau regardless of suit — any 7 takes any 6 — and build the foundations up by suit. An emptied row can accept any single card, and those empty rows are the whole game: they are your only working space, and spending one carelessly usually ends the position.

12. Baker's Dozen — one deck, thirteen columns

Deal all 52 cards into 13 columns of four, face up. Before starting, move any King to the bottom of its own column — Kings block everything beneath them otherwise.

Build down in the tableau regardless of suit, one card at a time, and build foundations up by suit from the Aces. The hard constraint: an empty column stays empty, since nothing may be moved into it. With no working space at all, every move has to be planned several steps ahead.

13. Canfield — one deck, the casino game

Count off 13 cards as a face-down reserve with the top card visible. Turn up one more card: whatever its rank is becomes the base rank for all four foundations. Deal four cards face up as the tableau. The rest is stock, drawn three at a time with unlimited redeals.

Tableau builds go down in alternating colours and wrap around — a King may be placed on an Ace. Foundations climb from the base rank and wrap too. Empty tableau spots are refilled automatically from the reserve.

Canfield was invented as a casino game where players bought a deck for $50 and were paid $5 per card sent to the foundations. The house did well. Even with careful play you will win well under half your deals, and casually far fewer.

The two-deck games

These need two standard decks shuffled together — 104 cards. Everything above works with one.

14. Spider — two decks, adjustable difficulty

Ten columns holding 54 cards, only the last of each face up; the remaining 50 cards are dealt out ten at a time as you get stuck. Build down in rank regardless of suit, but a run only moves as a group if the whole run is the same suit. Complete a King-to-Ace run in one suit and it is removed from the board. Clear all eight runs to win.

Spider is really three games depending on how many suits you deal in. One suit is a gentle introduction, two suits is the balanced version, and four suits is a genuine expert challenge. One rule catches everyone out: you may not deal a new row while any column is empty. Play Spider here.

15. Forty Thieves — two decks, unforgiving

Ten columns of four cards, all face up. Foundations build up by suit from the Aces. Tableau builds go down by suit, and you may only ever move one card at a time. The stock is dealt one card at a time with no redeal.

Strict suit building plus single-card moves plus one pass through the deck makes this one of the hardest classic patiences — a win rate around one game in ten is normal. It is also known as Napoleon at St Helena.

16. Emperor — two decks, a fairer Forty Thieves

Ten columns of four, but three cards face down and one face up, plus a reserve row of ten single cards. Tableau builds go down in alternating colours — looser than Forty Thieves — though still one card at a time. Every reserve card is available, which gives you real options in the opening.

Which one should you play?

• You have five minutes: Golf, TriPeaks or Aces Up.
• You want to actually win: FreeCell, Yukon or Beleaguered Castle.
• You want to think hard: Scorpion, Baker's Dozen or Forty Thieves.
• You want no thinking at all: Clock Patience.
• You are teaching someone: Aces Up first, then Klondike.
• You only have one deck: everything except Spider, Forty Thieves and Emperor.

A note on solo deck-building games

If you arrived looking for solo deck-building games — designed games with custom cards, like the ones sold in hobby shops — that is a different family entirely and not what this guide covers. Everything here uses ordinary playing cards you already own.