Klondike wins and scoring

Our Klondike Solitaire rules use draw one, unlimited redeals, and the explicitly chosen house permission to return a foundation’s top card to a legal tableau destination. This basic version has no numerical score. Completing the foundations is the result that matters.

Check all four foundations

Each foundation must contain its whole suit in order from ace to king. Four kings on top mean four complete thirteen-card sequences only if every earlier move was legal.

A full win moves 4 × 13 = 52 cards to the foundations. The tableau, stock and waste are then empty. Turning over all tableau cards is progress, but it is not by itself a win; cards still outside the foundations must be played legally.

Situation	Result
All four foundations complete, ace through king	Win
Every tableau card face up, but foundations incomplete	Continue
One suit complete, others incomplete	Continue
Stock empty but waste can be redealt	Continue
No useful legal sequence remains	Stalled game; redeal a new game if you stop

An empty stock is not an automatic loss

In this version, turn the waste face down as a unit, without shuffling, to rebuild the stock. Only the waste’s top card is available to play. Moving a useful card out of the waste can change which cards are accessible later.

Check the tableau for moves that expose hidden cards or free a king-led sequence. An empty column accepts only a king or a legal sequence headed by one. Because foundation return is permitted by the site’s house rules, also consider whether a legal return makes a useful tableau build.

Repeatedly cycling the same unchanged stock does not create new cards. If no useful move or sequence can change the position, continuing the same loop is not progress. Being stuck does not prove that the original shuffled deal was impossible; an earlier choice may have removed a route to completion.

A progress count is not a points award

For a personal record, you may note how many cards are on the foundations when you stop. Suppose hearts are complete through king, diamonds through 9, clubs through 7 and spades through 5. With ace counted as the first card, that is 13 + 9 + 7 + 5 = 34 foundation cards, leaving 18 elsewhere.

That entry means “34 of 52 completed,” not an official score of 34 points or a partial win. It is an optional way to describe the finish; the binary result is still won or not completed.

Compare games using the same settings

If you choose to track a series, keep the draw rule, redeal limit and foundation-return permission constant. Four completed games out of ten attempts is a 40% observed completion rate for those attempts. It is not the mathematical probability of winning Klondike or evidence that 40% of all deals are solvable.

Decide how abandoned games and restarts count before recording results. Otherwise stopping difficult deals early can make the record look better without changing play.

Timed computer scoring and Vegas-style payouts belong to their specific implementations. Do not add their move bonuses, clock deductions or betting conventions to this unscored version.

For choosing moves before the end, see Klondike beginner strategy; for legal sequence and waste access reminders, see common mistakes.