Yukon Solitaire is a one-player, 52-card patience game where all cards are dealt at the start and you win by building four suit foundations from Ace to King. There is no stock pile. Every card is already somewhere on the table.
That one fact changes the feel of the whole game. In Klondike Solitaire (Turn 1) and Klondike Solitaire (Turn 3), part of your attention goes to the stock and waste. In Yukon, the problem is visible from the first deal, though 21 cards begin face down. You are trying to open those hidden cards, organise the tableau, and send cards to the foundations without blocking the ranks you need next.
The unusual rule is the reason people ask how to play Yukon. You may move any face-up card in the tableau, carrying every card stacked on top of it, even if that packet is not in neat order. The card you choose must still land legally: one rank lower than the destination card and the opposite colour. Once you understand that packet move, the rest of the rules are short: the deal, the legal landings, the foundations, and the exact point at which the game is over.
What is Yukon Solitaire, and what are you trying to do?
Yukon Solitaire is a solitaire card game for 1 player using a standard 52-card deck. The aim is to move every card to 4 foundations, one for each suit, building each foundation in order from Ace up to King.
The table starts with 7 tableau columns. Unlike Klondike Solitaire (Turn 1), there is no stock and no waste pile. The entire deck is dealt into the tableau before your first move, so the game is about rearranging what is already there rather than waiting for a useful card to appear from the deck.
The tableau is where the work happens. You build down in alternating colours: a black 9 may go onto a red 10, a red Queen may go onto a black King, and so on. The large twist is that the cards you move do not have to form a proper descending run. If the card you pick up is face up and it fits the destination, everything sitting on top of it travels with it.
A game ends in a win when all 52 cards have been moved to the foundations. If you reach a position with no useful legal moves and the foundations are not complete, the game is stuck. The core Yukon solitaire rules do not use a standard points score; the result is won or unwon. Move and time counters, where shown online, are measures of play, not scoring rules.
How is the table set up at the start?
Yukon uses all 52 cards from the opening deal. There are 7 tableau columns and 4 empty foundations. The foundations usually sit above the tableau, but their exact screen position does not matter; they are the 4 suit piles you build from Ace to King.
The tableau begins with a Klondike-like base, then the remaining cards are placed face up onto columns 2 to 7. That leaves the first column short and the later columns longer, which is normal in Yukon.
| Column | Total cards | Face-down cards | Face-up cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 3 | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 4 | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 5 | 9 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| 7 | 11 | 6 | 5 |
So the starting board contains 31 face-up cards and 21 face-down cards. Those hidden cards are the pressure in the game. A sensible early move is often one that uncovers a face-down card, even if it does not immediately help a foundation.
- Deck: 1 standard deck, no jokers.
- Players: 1.
- Tableau: 7 columns, all 52 cards dealt there.
- Stock pile: none.
- Foundations: 4 empty suit piles, built upwards from Ace.
What counts as a legal move in Yukon?
- Build down by alternating colours in the tableau. A tableau move must place the moving card onto a card of the opposite colour and exactly 1 rank higher. A red 7 can go onto a black 8. A black Jack can go onto a red Queen. Suits do not matter in the tableau, only colour and rank.
- Move any face-up tableau card with all cards on top of it. This is the rule that defines Yukon. The packet you lift does not need to be ordered. If a face-up 6 has three messy cards above it, you may move the whole packet onto a red or black 7 of the opposite colour, depending on the 6's colour. You may not leave those upper cards behind.
- Turn over a face-down card when it is uncovered. If you move away every face-up card lying on a face-down card, turn that hidden card face up. Opening these cards is often more valuable than making a tidy-looking column.
- Fill an empty tableau column only with a King. A King may be moved into an empty column, carrying any cards stacked on top of it. A non-King cannot start an empty tableau column under standard Yukon solitaire rules.
- Move suitable uncovered cards to the foundations. An Ace may start its suit foundation. After that, the 2 of the same suit goes on the Ace, then the 3, and so on up to King. Foundation moves are made with single uncovered cards, not with a mixed packet from the tableau.
- Do not draw new cards. There is no stock, no waste, and no redeal. If the card you need is buried, your only route is to move cards around until it is exposed.
How do you build the foundations and finish the game?
The foundations are the 4 suit piles. Each starts with an Ace and then rises in suit order: Ace, 2, 3, 4, and so on through to King. Hearts must stay with hearts, spades with spades, clubs with clubs, and diamonds with diamonds.
You can move an uncovered Ace to an empty foundation as soon as it is available. After that, the next card must be the 2 of the same suit. You cannot put the 3 of hearts on the Ace of hearts until the 2 of hearts is already there. This strict order is why low cards matter so much in Yukon; one buried 2 can hold back an entire suit.
The game is won when all 52 cards have reached the foundations. There is no separate final trick and no remaining stock to check. Four complete foundations, each ending in a King, are the finish.
Be careful with early foundation moves. Sending an Ace up is usually harmless, and low cards often need to go home quickly. Higher cards can be useful in the tableau because they give other cards somewhere to land. A black 10 in the tableau, for example, may be the only place for a red 9 packet that frees a face-down card. Good Yukon play means building foundations without stripping the tableau of the landing cards that help you reach the next buried rank.
Why do people keep coming back to Yukon Solitaire?
Yukon Solitaire gives you a full problem straight away. There is no stock pile softening the deal and no waiting for a lucky turn from the deck. The visible cards tell you a lot, the hidden cards still create doubt, and every move can change several columns at once.
The packet-moving rule is the hook. In many solitaire games, a messy stack is dead weight until it is sorted. In Yukon, a single useful face-up card can carry that mess to a better place. That makes the game feel generous at first. Then you notice the cost. A careless packet move can bury a key card under five others, fill the only useful King space, or remove the landing card you needed for the next move.
It also sits between two familiar styles. FreeCell is more open and more exact; Spider Solitaire (4 Suits) is broader and slower. Yukon is compact. Seven columns, one deck, no draw pile. You can read the whole position, make a plan, and still be surprised by the next face-down card you uncover.
The evidence for precise win rates across ordinary online Yukon games is thin, because deals, rule details, and undo settings vary. The rules create the appeal: the game gives you more freedom than Klondike and makes you take more responsibility for it.
Frequently asked questions
Partly. Luck decides where the face-down cards start, and some deals give you fewer useful openings than others. Skill decides how much of the deal you actually see before it jams. Good Yukon play is mostly about uncovering hidden cards, keeping kings useful, and not spending an empty column on a move that gains nothing.
21 cards start face down. They sit in columns 2 to 7: one hidden card in the second column, two in the third, and so on up to six in the seventh. The other 31 cards are face up, which is why Yukon feels more open than Klondike Solitaire (Turn 1) even before you make a move.
The common misconception is that the whole pile must be neatly arranged before you move it. In Yukon, the card you pick up only has to fit the card you place it on. Everything sitting on top of that card comes along, even if that trailing pile is a mess of mixed ranks and suits.
A black 9 sitting under a red 10 is useful if moving it uncovers a face-down card, even when three untidy cards ride on top of the 9. That one move may reveal a queen, an ace, or the king you need for an empty column. Early Yukon moves should buy information, not just make tidy stacks.
It depends on the card’s job in the tableau. Aces are normally safe to send up because nothing builds on them in the tableau. Higher cards need more thought. A black 6, for example, may be needed to hold a red 5 and expose a hidden card. If sending it up removes your only useful landing place, wait.
FreeCell gives you four storage spaces and shows every card from the start. Yukon gives you no free cells, hides 21 cards, and lets you move any exposed card with the whole pile above it. FreeCell is often about calculating space. Yukon is more about using messy transfers to expose buried cards before the tableau locks up.
Only a king can start an empty column. The exception is that the king may bring a whole face-up pile with it, even if the cards above the king are not in sequence. Empty columns are valuable because they let you move kings out of trapped positions and open access to cards buried underneath them.
Most people do wrong by making every legal move as soon as it appears. Yukon punishes that. A move can look tidy while burying the only red queen you need or using the last empty column too early. Before moving a pile, ask what new card it exposes and what landing spaces it destroys.
An exposed card is any face-up card you can pick up because no face-down card is sitting on top of it. It may have other face-up cards stacked above it, and those cards move with it. This is the key Yukon idea: exposure matters more than whether the pile above the card is properly ordered.
Turn the new face-up card into a target or a carrier. If it can receive another card, use it to clear more of the tableau. If it can move onto a foundation, check first that the tableau does not still need it. Newly uncovered cards are your main source of progress, so treat each reveal as a fresh position, not a bonus.
Final thoughts
If you are playing your first game, do not try to make every column beautiful. Yukon punishes tidiness when it comes too early. A neat red 8, black 7, red 6 run is pleasant, but it is not worth much if it leaves three face-down cards trapped and no empty column for a King.
Look first for moves that expose hidden cards. Then look for moves that create empty columns. A vacant column is powerful because only a King can fill it, and a well-timed King move can shift a whole blocked part of the table. Waste that space and the game can tighten very quickly.
Also watch the low cards. A buried 2 or 3 can stop a foundation long after the Ace is ready. Sometimes the right move is not the flashy packet shift; it is the small move that frees one low card and starts a suit climbing.
Yukon works because it lets you feel clever without pretending the deal is fully under your control. You make bold moves. Some work. Some leave you with a board that looks possible for three minutes longer than it really is. Then you deal again, because the next layout will ask the same rules in a different accent.
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