Cozy Classic
Free Klondike Solitaire
Porch Swing Solitaire
Classic Klondike solitaire with big, easy-to-read cards, unlimited undo and no timer unless you want one.
What you do
Porch Swing Solitaire is Klondike, the game most people simply call solitaire, laid out on a patchwork quilt on a porch table at dusk, under a string of lights. Deal seven columns, build them down in alternating colors, turn over the face-down cards and send all 52 cards home to the foundations, Ace to King in each suit. Play Draw 1 or the traditional, harder Draw 3, with as many passes through the stock as you like, while Biscuit the ginger cat watches from his porch swing, cheers each card you send home and leans in to think when you ask for a hint.
- Winnable deals: before a deal reaches the table, a solver that can see every card has won it, so a way through exists. Plain shuffles are one setting away.
- Today’s deal: one winnable Draw 1 deal a day, the same for everyone, with your best try kept.
- Hints that use only what you can see, never a face-down card or the order of the stock.
- Once every card is face up, the rest play home by themselves.
- A move counter, an optional timer, and statistics for Draw 1 and Draw 3, saved on this device with the deal in progress.
How to play
- Press Deal the cards. One 52-card deck is dealt into seven columns of 1 to 7 cards, 28 cards in all, with the top card of each column face up. The other 24 cards are the stock.
- Build the columns down in alternating colors: a red 7 goes on a black 8, and a black Jack on a red Queen. A face-up run that is in order moves together. When the last face-up card leaves a column, the face-down card under it turns over by itself.
- Only a King, or a run headed by a King, can go into an empty column.
- Tap the stock to turn cards onto the waste: one at a time with Draw 1, or three at a time with Draw 3, where only the top card plays. When the stock runs out, tap it to turn the waste back over and go through again, as many times as you like.
- Build the four foundations up by suit, from Ace to King. A foundation’s top card can come back down to a column when you need it. You win when all 52 cards are home.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: drag a card or a run to where it goes, or tap it and then tap the place; the places it can go glow. Double-tap or double-click a card to send it home, or to its best column when it cannot go home yet. Tap the stock to turn cards. Undo, Hint and Menu sit on the wooden bench below the table, or beside it on a wide screen.
- Keyboard: the arrow keys move between the stock, the waste, the foundations and the columns, and in a column Up and Down choose how many face-up cards to pick up. Enter or Space picks up and puts down, 1 to 7 pick up from or drop onto a column, D turns the stock, F sends a card home, U undoes, H shows a hint and Escape puts a card back.
- Restart in the toolbar replays the same deal from the start. Menu starts a new deal, opens today’s deal, changes the settings (Draw 1 or Draw 3, winnable deals or any shuffle, timer) and shows your statistics. The toolbar also has pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.
Tips worth knowing
- Turn over face-down cards first. Each one is a card you cannot use yet, so prefer the move that frees one, and dig into the columns with the most face-down cards.
- Do not empty a column until a King is ready to fill it. An empty column takes only a King, so clearing one with no King to put there gains nothing.
- When you have a choice of Kings for an empty column, pick the one the waiting cards fit: a red King if a black Queen needs a home.
- Do not rush every card to the foundations. Aces and 2s are always safe to send home, but a black 5 sent up early may be the only place for a red 4 still buried in a column.
- Make every move that turns over a card before you turn the stock. With Draw 3, remember that playing a waste card changes which cards come up on the next pass.
- Undo is unlimited and never changes your result, so try a line, and take it back if it goes nowhere.
Accessibility
- Everything can be played with a keyboard: the arrow keys move a visible focus between the piles, Up and Down choose how many cards of a column to pick up, and Enter or Space picks up and puts down.
- Each pile is a button that reads out its cards: a column says how many cards are face down and names every face-up card, so the whole table can be followed with a screen reader.
- Nothing is timed unless you turn the timer on, and undo is unlimited.
- Every card shows a large rank and suit, red for hearts and diamonds and black for spades and clubs, and the places a picked-up card can go glow.
- Reduced motion stops the dealing, flipping and sliding cards, the shakes and Biscuit’s swinging. Sound is optional and never needed to play.
Questions
Can every game of Klondike solitaire be won?
No. Some shuffles cannot be won however you play. Our solver, which sees every card, the face-down ones included, proved 593 of 1,000 plain Draw 1 shuffles and 496 of 1,000 Draw 3 shuffles winnable within the search it is given. It could not settle most of the rest either way, so the true share is higher. Winnable deals, the default, use only shuffles the solver has won, though the way through can still depend on cards you have not seen yet.
What is the difference between Draw 1 and Draw 3?
With Draw 1 you turn the stock one card at a time, so every card in it can be reached on each pass. With Draw 3 you turn three at a time and only the top one plays, so the cards under it wait until the next pass, and playing a waste card shifts which cards come up next time. Draw 3 is the traditional and harder game; Draw 1 is the default here, and today’s deal is always Draw 1.
What does the game save?
Your settings, the deal in progress with every move, today’s deal, and your statistics for Draw 1 and Draw 3 (deals played and won, and your fewest moves), all in this browser’s local storage. There is no account.
