Yukon Solitaire Tips: No-Stock Dealing, Lifting Any Block and Reading a Buried Deal (2026)

1. The deal you actually get

One full deck is shuffled — 52 cards — and every one of them is dealt. The first column holds 1 face-up card; each later column holds its own face-down cards under 5 face-up cards, so the seven columns are sized 1/6/7/8/9/10/11. That is 21 buried cards and 31 visible ones, and there is no stock and no waste: unlike Klondike nothing is held back, so everything you will ever get is already on the table.

That is the first difference from every Klondike-derived patience on this site. There is no turning, no redeal, no luck left to run. The only hidden information is which face-down card sits where, and you uncover those 21 cards strictly by playing — each one is earned by lifting everything above it.

2. Lift any face-up block — the rule that decides everything

In Klondike the block you lift is always an ordered run, because ordered runs are all the deal ever produces. Here any face-up card may be lifted together with everything on top of it, even when the lifted block is not in sequence. A red 5 buried under two random cards still moves as one lift the moment a black 6 is free — the board only checks the bottom card of the moving block.

Practically: read the bottom card, ignore the mess above it. A five-high face-up stack looks like a finished run, but it may be five unrelated cards that happen to sit together, and all five travel wherever the bottom one is legal. This is why Yukon rewards moving early and often: every lift rearranges the visible board, and the rearrangement itself opens the next lift.

It also means a buried card is never more than one good lift away. The card you actually want is usually second or third in a stack, and the price of reaching it is finding a legal home for the block above it — not waiting for a stock card that will never come.

3. Alternating colour, and Kings own the empty columns

Columns build down by rank in alternating colour. A red 7 goes on a black 8. It will not go on a red 8, and a red 6 will not go on a black 8 either — colour and rank both have to be right, and the board enforces both.

Empty columns are the scarcest resource on the board. Only a King (with whatever sits on it) may enter an empty column, so a queen, however well placed elsewhere, can never open a new column. The habit worth building: before you move a King block, ask what the empty column is for — parking a King that uncovers two face-down cards is a move; parking a lone King to admire it is a wasted column.

Because any block lifts, a King buried third in a stack is still reachable in one lift, provided the block's bottom card has a legal home. Kings are rarely truly stuck; they are usually just expensive.

4. Four foundations, any ace starts

There are four foundations, each building up from Ace to King by suit. Unlike the eight-foundation games on this site there is only one foundation per suit — but also unlike them, any ace may start any empty foundation, so the first ace you free goes home immediately no matter which pile is free.

Foundations take only the next rank of their own suit — no skipping, no filling a gap later — and they take single top cards only: a block, however tidy, cannot be dropped on a foundation. That means a 5 of spades with the 4 already home is a permanent candidate, while a 5 with no 4 on any foundation is worth nothing yet. Reading the foundations tells you which tableau cards are actually valuable right now.

5. No stock: read the deal before you commit

There is no stock to turn and no waste to mine. When a move uncovers a face-down card it is turned face up automatically, inside the same move — and undo restores the cards and the flip together, so experimenting with an uncovering is always safe.

So the opening is not "start moving". It is: send home every free foundation card you can (about 44% of deals start with an ace on top), make the lifts that uncover the most face-down cards first — the seventh column hides six — and then start consolidating. The average opening offers about 9 legal moves and no measured deal offered zero, so you always have a choice; the skill is spending it on uncovering rather than on shuffling for the sake of it.

When the board runs out of moves there is no recovery pile: undo (up to 500 steps in a session) or a new deal are the only exits, and the shell tells you with a No moves left bar.

6. How hard is it, really?

Yukon has a reputation, and the measurement backs it up — with a twist. Playing 3,000 random deals with a deliberately weak greedy baseline — send anything free to a foundation, uncover face-down cards when possible, and never shuffle for its own sake — the baseline collected 0.9 cards out of 52 on average (median 1; the middle 80% of deals landed between 0 and 2) in 3.5 moves, left 18.6 of the 21 buried cards still buried, and won none of the 3,000.

Read those numbers the right way. They describe a baseline that refuses to shuffle, not the game's ceiling: without shuffling, 90% of the game is unreachable, which is exactly the point — the tableau shuffling is the game. A human who moves blocks with purpose uncovers those 18 buried cards and collects far more than 1 card; the baseline proves that sitting still loses, not that winning is impossible. Treat a deal where you have uncovered all 21 buried cards as a deal you are genuinely contesting.

Opening mobility is the other useful number: across those 3,000 deals the opening position offered 8.9 legal moves on average, no deal offered zero, and about 44% started with an ace on top — a free first card. That is not a bug; it is the game's way of paying for the missing stock. Use the free moves to uncover, not to tidy.

FAQ

How do you play Yukon Solitaire?

Seven columns are dealt from one deck with no stock: the first column holds 1 face-up card and each later column holds face-down cards under 5 face-up cards. Build columns down in alternating colour, lift any face-up block even out of sequence, put only Kings on empty columns, and fill four foundations from Ace to King. Win by filling all four foundations.

Can I really move a block that is not in sequence?

Yes. Any face-up card lifts with everything on top of it, and the board checks only the bottom card of the moving block. An unsorted pile still travels wherever its bottom card is legal — that single rule is the biggest difference from Klondike.

Why can't my queen go on the empty column?

Only a King may enter an empty column, with whatever sits on it. A queen can never open a new column no matter how well placed it is elsewhere — save empty columns for King blocks that uncover face-down cards.

What is the deal number under the title?

It identifies the shuffle. Add ?deal=12345 to the page URL to play that exact deal again, and share the number to compare the same board. Without it every load deals a fresh random board.

Is a deal ever unwinnable?

Yes, often. In 3,000 measured deals a shuffle-free baseline never won one — but that baseline also never shuffled, which is where the game is actually decided. Plan your uncovering order, and treat fully uncovering all 21 buried cards as the mark of a deal you are genuinely contesting.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The board is fitted to the measured stage so all seven columns and the foundations sit inside the phone frame with no scrolling, and a real tap runs the same code path as a mouse click. All 52 dealt cards were verified inside the 348x261 production stage.

Where can I play it?

Right on this site's yukon solitaire page. The engine, renderer, card model, RNG, sound and stylesheet are the MIT-licensed solitaire-collection by muzsor (commit 13ce580c) shipped byte-identical; that pin has no Yukon, so the rules module is Playnesta-original and follows the same contract as the upstream klondike module. Cards are DOM elements and sounds are WebAudio synthesis, so no bitmap, audio or font asset ships and nothing is fetched at runtime.