What are the odds of winning Solitaire?
If you play Klondike for long enough, you start to wonder whether some deals are simply impossible. They are. But the full answer is more interesting than “some games can’t be won”, and it changes how you should play.
The short answer
For Klondike, the solitaire that came with Windows:
- Turn 3: about 82% of deals can be won with perfect play.
- Turn 1: about 90% of deals can be won with perfect play.
- In a real game, the figure is lower, and nobody knows exactly how much lower.
- A skilled human won 189 of 442 games in one published experiment. That’s about 43%.
The first two numbers come from a 2019 study by Charlie Blake and Ian Gent at the University of St Andrews, who had a computer solve huge numbers of random deals. Their Turn 3 result is 81.945%, give or take 0.084%.
Why “perfect play” isn’t the real game
There’s a catch in those figures. The computer was playing a version called Thoughtful Solitaire, where it knows where every card is, including the face-down ones. That’s the only way to say for certain whether a deal can be won.
You don’t have that luxury. When you face a choice, such as which of two black 7s to move a red 6 onto, the right answer often depends on a card you can’t see yet. Pick wrong and a winnable deal becomes a lost one. So 82% is a ceiling, not a target.
How far below the ceiling the real game sits is still an open question. The mathematician Persi Diaconis once called it “one of the embarrassments of applied probability” that nobody can say what the odds of winning ordinary Klondike are.
Why Turn 1 wins so much more often
In Turn 1 you see every card in the stock on every pass, so any card there is reachable when you need it. In Turn 3 you can only play the top card of each group of three, and the cards underneath may never come round in the order you want.
The St Andrews study shows how quickly the odds fall as you turn more cards:
| Cards turned at a time | Deals that can be won |
|---|---|
| 1 | about 90% |
| 2 | about 89% |
| 3 | about 82% |
| 4 | about 69% |
| 5 | about 53% |
If you want more wins, play Turn 1. The Draw button under the table switches between the two, and the game remembers your choice.
What about other solitaire games?
The same study covered dozens of other games. These figures are also for perfect play with every card known, so real-game odds are lower for any game with face-down cards.
| Game | Deals that can be won |
|---|---|
| FreeCell | almost all (about 99.999%) |
| Spiderette | about 99.6% |
| Klondike, Turn 1 | about 90% |
| Klondike, Turn 3 | about 82% |
| Canfield | about 71% |
| Golf | about 45% |
| Clock | exactly 1 in 13 |
FreeCell stands out because every card is dealt face up, so the perfect-play number really is the number you’re playing against. We wrote about the one famous FreeCell deal nobody can solve if you’re curious.
Clock is the opposite. It has no decisions at all, so your odds are fixed at 1 in 13 however you play.
Where the “1 in 30” figure comes from
You may have seen it claimed that only 1 in 30 games of solitaire can be won. That figure comes from Hoyle’s rules, and it’s for a much harsher version: Turn 1 with only one pass through the stock, the way Klondike is played as a casino game. With the unlimited passes most people play with, including on this site, your chances are far better.
How to win more of the deals you can win
The gap between 82% and your own win rate is mostly made of deals that were winnable but went wrong. A few habits close that gap:
- Play Turn 1 unless you want the challenge. It’s the single biggest change you can make.
- Turn over face-down cards first. Every hidden card you reveal is information the perfect-play computer had and you didn’t.
- Hold back when the choice is a guess. If two moves look equal and one keeps your options open, take that one and see what turns up.
- Use Undo to explore. Trying a line and taking it back is how you make up for not seeing the hidden cards. There’s no limit on undo here.
- Know when a deal is gone. If you’ve cycled the stock with nothing changing and Hint finds no moves, start a new game rather than grinding.
For the basics, our guide on how to play solitaire has more beginner tips.
Questions people ask
Can every game of solitaire be won?
No. With perfect play and full knowledge of the cards, about 1 in 5 Turn 3 Klondike deals and about 1 in 10 Turn 1 deals still can’t be won.
What’s a good win rate for Klondike?
There’s no official figure. In one published experiment a skilled player won about 43% of games, so anything around 40% is good going. Expect more wins in Turn 1 than in Turn 3.
Is FreeCell easier to win than Klondike?
Yes. Almost every FreeCell deal can be won, and since all the cards are face up, a loss is down to the moves you made rather than bad luck.
Put it into practice
Deal a game of Klondike in Turn 1, try the habits above, and see how your win rate moves.
Sources: Charlie Blake and Ian Gent, The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games, University of St Andrews. Human win rate and the Diaconis quote as reported in Klondike (solitaire) on Wikipedia.