Free card games
Klondike solitaire
2 games
Two-deck solitaire
3 games
One-deck patience
4 games
Trick-taking card games
1 game
Learn the rules
Nine of the ten games here are patience: one player, one deck or two, and a tableau to unpick. The tenth is Hearts, which deals four hands and plays thirteen tricks, three of them held by the computer. All of them run in the browser, work on a phone, and start without an account.
If you only know one of these it is Klondike — the game Windows shipped in 1990, and the one most people mean by solitaire. Solitaire here turns one card at a time from the stock; Klondike Turn 3 turns three, which is the traditional version and the harder one, because two thirds of the stock is out of reach at any moment. The rest are worth knowing because they fail differently. FreeCell almost never deals a hand you cannot win. Spider Solitaire gives you two decks and punishes building the wrong way. Yukon Solitaire takes the stock away entirely. Pyramid Solitaire and Tri Peaks Solitaire are about clearing a shape rather than filling four foundations.
Which one should you play?
Play Solitaire if you want the familiar one. It turns a single card from the stock, which makes it the most forgiving Klondike on the site, and it is the version to start on if you have not played in a while.
Play FreeCell if losing to the shuffle annoys you. Every card is dealt face up, so there is no hidden information and no luck of the draw: of the 32,000 numbered deals that shipped with Windows, exactly one has been shown to be unwinnable. When you lose a hand here it was a decision, not the deck.
Play Spider Solitaire if you want the longest game. Two decks, ten columns, and a rule that separates what you may place from what you may pick up — any card goes on any card one rank higher, but only a run in a single suit can be carried. The one-suit board is where to learn it; the four-suit board is the one to graduate to.
Play Pyramid Solitaire or Tri Peaks Solitaire when you want a short game with a shape to clear. Pyramid pairs cards that add to thirteen and sends kings away on their own. Tri Peaks takes any card one rank above or below the card in the waste, and pays a streak for doing it again and again.
Play Yukon Solitaire if you like Klondike but want more to think about. Everything is dealt face up and there is no stock at all, so every card you need is already on the table and the whole difficulty is the order you move them in.
Play Hearts if you want opponents rather than a shuffle. Thirteen tricks, a passing rotation that changes every hand, and a match that runs to 100 points — the queen of spades costs thirteen on her own, and taking every penalty card on purpose turns the score round instead of ending you.