Solitaire Games

Solitaire is not one game. It is a family of a few hundred, almost all of them played alone with a single deck, and the handful that survived into the computer age did so because they get the balance between luck and thinking right.

The one most people mean is Klondike: seven columns, four foundations, build down in alternating colours and up by suit. It is the game that shipped with Windows in 1990 and taught an entire generation to use a mouse. It is also, quietly, the least fair of the popular ones. Depending on how strictly you count, somewhere between a fifth and a third of Klondike deals cannot be won at all. When a game defeats you it is often not your fault, and knowing that changes how you play it.

FreeCell is the opposite. Every card is face up from the start, and virtually every deal is solvable. There is no hidden information and no luck to blame, which makes it the thinking player's choice and also the more frustrating one, because a loss is entirely yours. The four free cells are temporary parking, and learning to treat them as a scarce resource rather than a dumping ground is the whole skill.

Spider splits the difference. Two decks, ten columns, and the goal is to build complete runs from king down to ace and clear them off the table. In one suit it is gentle. In four suits it is one of the hardest solitaire games in common circulation.

TriPeaks and Pyramid are the fast ones. Instead of building foundations you clear a shaped layout by picking cards one above or one below the card in your hand. A round takes two minutes and depends far more on the deal, which is exactly why they suit a coffee break.

Then there are the mahjong tile games, which are called solitaire because they are played alone rather than because they use cards. Match free pairs of tiles and dismantle the layout. The rule about which tiles are free, nothing on top and one side open, is the only rule you need, and everything difficult about the game comes out of it.

Which one should you start with

If you have played solitaire before and want the familiar one, take Klondike Solitaire or Classic Solitaire.

If you want a puzzle with no hidden cards and no bad luck, take FreeCell.

If you want something short, TriPeaks deals a new round faster than you can lose interest.

If you would rather match tiles than cards, start with Mahjong Solitaire and the wider mahjong collection.

Every game here runs in the browser. Nothing to install, no account, and they work the same on a phone as on a desktop.