Yukon Solitaire

How to Play Yukon Solitaire

What Is Yukon Solitaire?

Yukon Solitaire is a close cousin of Klondike with one bold twist: there is no stock pile at all. Every one of the 52 cards is dealt onto the table at the start, and instead of drawing new cards, you dig for the ones you need by hauling big, untidy stacks of cards around the tableau. In Yukon, any face-up card can be moved along with everything sitting on top of it, whether those cards are in order or not. That single rule changes everything. Games feel like excavations: you tunnel down through the columns, uncover the buried face-down cards, and slowly bring order out of chaos. Your goal is the familiar one, move all 52 cards to the four foundations, building each suit up from Ace to King.

The Layout

Yukon deals the entire deck into seven tableau columns, plus four empty foundations:

• Column 1 holds a single face-up card.
• Columns 2 through 7 each begin with a bed of face-down cards: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 hidden cards respectively. On top of those, every column from 2 to 7 receives 5 face-up cards.
• That accounts for all 52 cards: 21 face down, 31 face up, and nothing left over. There is no stock and no waste pile. What you see is everything you will ever get.
• The foundations are four empty spaces, one per suit. Each builds up in order from the Ace: Ace, 2, 3, and so on up to the King.

When you clear the last face-up card off a pile of face-down cards, the top hidden card flips over and joins the game.

Building in the Tableau

Cards in the tableau are built down in rank and in alternating colors, exactly as in Klondike. A card may be placed on another card that is one rank higher and the opposite color. For example, the red 6 of hearts can go on the black 7 of spades or the black 7 of clubs, but not on the red 7 of diamonds. Suits do not matter for tableau building, only color and rank.

The Yukon Move: Everything Comes Along

Here is the rule that makes Yukon special. In Klondike you may only move tidy, ordered runs. In Yukon, any face-up card can be moved, together with all the cards stacked on top of it, no matter what they are or what order they are in. The whole pile simply rides along.

An example: suppose a column shows, from bottom to top, the 9 of hearts, then the Queen of clubs, then the 3 of diamonds. In most solitaire games that 9 would be hopelessly buried. In Yukon, you can grab the 9 of hearts and drop it, Queen, 3, and all, onto any black 10. The Queen and the 3 land on top of the 9 in their same jumbled order. They are not sorted, and they do not need to be. The only thing the game checks is the bottom card of the group you are moving: it must fit the card you drop it on, one rank lower and the opposite color.

This is why Yukon rewards bold play. Moving a messy pile is often the only way to reach a face-down card, and the mess itself is temporary. You can always come back later and untangle it.

No Stock, No Redeals

Because the whole deck is dealt at the start, there is nothing to draw and nothing to cycle through. Every card you need is already on the table, hiding under other cards. Progress in Yukon comes from one activity: uncovering the 21 face-down cards. Each one you flip gives you more material to work with, and clearing all of them almost always means the game is yours.

Empty Columns

When a column is emptied completely, only a King may be placed there, either a single King or a group of cards whose bottom card is a King (with its usual passengers riding on top). Choose carefully: once a King settles into an empty space, it tends to stay for the rest of the game.

The Foundations and How to Win

Foundations are built up by suit, starting from the Ace: the Ace of spades, then the 2 of spades, then the 3, and so on to the King. Only the fully exposed card at the bottom of a tableau column may be sent to a foundation. You win when all 52 cards have made the trip and all four foundations are crowned with their Kings. With careful play, roughly one game in four can be won, so a victory in Yukon genuinely means something.

Playing on This Site

Drag any face-up card to move it with everything on top of it, or double-click (double-tap on a touch screen) a card to send it to the foundation automatically. The buttons above the table give you a New deal, Undo, Redo, a Hint when you are stuck, and Auto-finish to sweep the remaining cards home once the game is clearly won. Undo is unlimited, so experiment as much as you like. Every deal also has a seed number, so you can replay the exact same shuffle later or share it with a friend.

Yukon Solitaire Strategy & Tips

Dig Where the Treasure Is Buried

Yukon is won and lost over the face-down cards, and they are not spread evenly. Columns 6 and 7 hide 5 and 6 cards each, more than half of all the hidden cards in the game, while column 2 hides only one.

• Aim your early moves at the deep right-hand columns. The sooner you start mining them, the more turns you have to finish the job.
• Whenever two moves look equal, take the one that flips a face-down card, or moves you one step closer to flipping one.
• Column 1 starts with a single face-up card. Moving it gives you an empty column almost for free, but remember only a King can take its place.

Plan Excavations in Stages

The Yukon group move lets a messy pile ride along on top of the card you actually want to move, so a rescue that looks impossible is often just a two- or three-step project.

• Before touching anything, read the whole column. Find the card you want to expose, then find the face-up card beneath the clutter that can legally travel somewhere else, taking the clutter with it.
• It is fine to create a temporary mess on another column, as long as you can name the moves that will clean it up. A mess with a plan is progress; a mess without one is quicksand.
• Watch for chain reactions: moving one pile often exposes a card that unlocks a second move, which flips a hidden card, which opens a third. The best Yukon turns come in bursts.

Spend Your Kings Wisely

Empty columns accept only Kings, and there are just four of them, so each one is a major decision.

• Do not rush to fill an empty space with the first King you can move. Ask which King helps most: usually the one whose Queen, Jack, and 10 of the opposite colors are reachable.
• A King moved into an empty column brings its whole pile along. Sometimes that is the point, relocating a King with junk on top can uncover several face-down cards at once.
• Avoid burying a King under a tall stack early in the game. A smothered King can leave you with no way to use the empty column it should have filled.

Send Aces Up Early, but Not Blindly

Getting the Aces onto the foundations opens the game up, and low cards should generally follow soon after. Still, Yukon punishes autopilot.

• A 2, 3, or 4 sitting in the tableau can still serve as a landing spot or a stepping stone. Before sending a low card up, check whether you will need it to catch another card first.
• Keep the four foundations rising at a roughly even pace. If one suit races ahead, you may strand cards of the other color with nowhere to go.
• When the last face-down card is flipped and every card is visible, the danger is mostly over. Use Auto-finish, or enjoy stacking the endgame yourself.

Use Undo to Explore

About one deal in four is winnable with strong play, and the difference between a win and a loss is often a single early choice. Undo is unlimited here, so treat it as a scout: try a line, see which cards it reveals, and rewind if it leads nowhere. Replaying the same seed after a loss is one of the best ways to improve.

Frequently Asked Questions

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