Solitaire, played free in your browser
Play solitaire online and the board loads in your browser with no download, no install and no sign up, 78 cards in play from the moment you click. Solitaire is a one player card game built around moving a full 52 card deck from face down to four foundation piles, and the version this page loads is Klondike, the variant most of the world calls just "solitaire." It runs on 60 hz refresh screens and older 30 hz displays alike, fits a 1024 pixel wide window as easily as a 4K monitor, and needs nothing but a browser that speaks HTML5. The felt table you see on the green card mat is the same one that ships on Windows and Mac desktops; here it is a loadable page, not a program you have to keep updated. You are on Cardboard Arcade, a new, unaffiliated catalogue of free casual browser games. This project has no connection to the site that once lived at this address, and every title here is hosted and playable in the browser, one complete game per page.
What follows is the short definition of the game, the rules in order, the variants that share this page's neighbours such as FreeCell, no download and Spider Solitaire, free, plus the questions beginners ask before the first move. If you want more than card games, the catalogue also carries Free puzzle games in the same one page, one game format.
What Solitaire Is
Solitaire is a family of single player card games, and the word traces back to the French sol, meaning alone, so the name says exactly who sits at the table. Klondike is the variant most people mean when they type play solitaire online free, and it is named after the 1890s gold rush town in the Canadian Northwest Territories that gave its name to the "wild and free" style of dealing. A full Klondike round starts with 52 standard playing cards, dealt into 7 tableau columns, 1 stock pile, 1 waste pile and 4 foundation piles, and the goal is to move every card to its foundation in 4 suits, each running from the ace to the king.
The game has been a staple of idle screen time for roughly 35 years on desktop machines, and the browser version changes one thing: you do not download a file, install a launcher or manage an update. The page loads the 52 cards, the 7 columns and the 4 foundations in a single round trip, and the game state lives in your browser tab. Close the tab and the round ends; open a new one and a fresh shuffle deals 100 percent of the deck again.
How to Play Solitaire Online for Beginners
To play solitaire online for beginners, follow the 6 steps below in order, and the first 3 of them account for most of the points in a typical 13 minute average game. No account, no download, no install step sits between you and the first legal move.
- Deal the 7 tableau columns so column 1 holds 1 card, column 2 holds 2, up to column 7 which holds 7 cards, with only the top card of each column face up, leaving the remaining 24 cards face down in the stock pile.
- Click the stock to draw 1 card into the waste pile, or drag the whole stock to the waste in a 3 card draw rule set, and the drawn card is the only new tile you can place on a tableau or foundation.
- Build tableau columns down in rank and in alternating red and black suits, so a red 8 of hearts sits on a black 9 of spades and a black 7 of clubs sits on a red 8 of diamonds.
- Move the exposed ace of each suit to its foundation pile, then add the 2 of the same suit, then the 3, and keep building each foundation up to the king, which is the 13th card of the suit and the card that closes the game.
- When no legal move is left in the tableau, click the empty stock slot to recycle the waste pile back into the stock, and most browser versions let you recycle up to 3 times before the round is scored as lost.
- Score the round: a standard Klondike round pays 500 points per completed foundation suit at the finish, 5 points per tableau build move, 15 points per waste to tableau move, 10 points per waste to foundation move and 100 points per stock recycle, so a clean 4 suit win lands at 6000 points before the time penalty is applied.
Beginners usually clear the first 3 suits in under 8 minutes and spend the rest of the round chasing the 4th ace, because the last suit to open is almost always the one buried in column 7. The rule to remember is that a face down card is not a tile until the card above it moves, so the whole game is a sequence of small 1 card reveals.
Klondike Rules and the Green Felt Table
Klondike rules are fixed by the 52 card deck and the 4 suit build, and the green felt table you see here is a visual carry over from the felt mat that covers a physical card table, chosen because green is the one background colour that keeps a 4 suit 52 card board readable without tinting any single card. The table itself is 100 percent decorative; the rules do not change between a green felt layout, a blue felt layout or a plain grey layout, and the card graphics are the same 52 images in every case.
| Element | Count | Starting state | Win state |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tableau columns | 7 | 1 to 7 cards each, only top card face up | Empty or holding only face up runs waiting for the foundation |
| Stock pile | 24 cards | Face down, top card clickable | Empty after the final recycle |
| Waste pile | 1 card at a time | Empty | Holds the last drawn card |
| Foundation piles | 4 | Empty | Each holds its full suit, ace through king |
| Total cards in play | 52 | All 52 dealt or in the stock | All 52 on the 4 foundations |
The 1 draw and the 3 draw rules are the only 2 legal variants of the stock in a standard Klondike round, and this page ships the 1 draw version by default because it is the harder of the 2 and the one that keeps an average round inside 13 minutes rather than stretching it past 20. The 3 draw version is a toggle in the settings row under the felt, and it changes the score by removing the 15 point waste to tableau bonus for the 2 extra cards in each draw.
Other Solitaire Variants on the Catalogue
Other solitaire variants share this catalogue because they are all 52 card or 144 tile one player games, and the 3 that sit next to this page are the ones a new player reaches for second. Each loads on its own page, one complete game per page, and each uses the same browser only, no download format as this one.
- FreeCell, no download, is the variant where all 52 cards start face up in 8 columns of 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 4 and 4, and the 52 card board is solved with 4 free cell slots and 4 foundation piles, and the published win rate across all 617,408 possible starting deals is 100 percent, which is the only solitaire variant with that property.
- Spider Solitaire, free, deals a 104 card double deck into 10 tableau columns of 10, with only the top card of each column face up, and the win condition is to build 8 complete 13 card suits from the king down to the ace, so a finished Spider board is 2 full 52 card decks stacked on 8 foundations.
- Free puzzle games on this catalogue extend the one player, no download format into non card shapes such as sliding tile, match 3 and logic grid, and they share the same 60 hz render loop and the same no account, no install loading path.
Jenny solitaire is a named variant some players look for, and it is a 52 card 1 player build that deals 10 columns with 50 cards in the tableau and 2 cards in the stock, so it sits between Klondike and Spider in difficulty. Mahjong solitaire is a 144 tile wall game and belongs to the same one player, no download shelf, but its 8 layer 144 tile wall is a different mechanic from a 52 card deck, so it gets its own page rather than a row here.
Safety, Downloads and Playing Without an Install
Safety for solitaire online comes from the fact that the game you play here is a 52 card browser page with no download, no install and no account, so there is no executable to sign, no installer to trust and no credential to hand over. The page loads 52 card images, a small layout script and the felt background, and nothing else leaves the browser tab, which is the same 0 network call profile as any other static page on this catalogue.
The questions in the "can I play solitaire online for free without downloading" shape all land on this same point: yes, the board runs in the tab, and the only thing you download is the page itself, which is the same as visiting any website. There is no background process, no update prompt and no "new version available" banner after the 13 minute round ends, because the game is a 1 load page, not a client you keep on disk. Full screen is a 1 button toggle on the felt, and it works on a 1920 pixel laptop screen and a 3840 pixel monitor without changing the 52 card layout.
Playing solitaire online for money is not what this page is. The 6000 point finish score on a clean Klondike round is a points tally, not a payout, and there is no cash, no wager and no wallet on this board. If you search "play solitaire blitz online free," you are looking at a timed variant of the same 52 card game, and the blitz format is a 3 minute clock run on the standard Klondike rules, which is a different page on this catalogue with the same no download, no account loading path.
Score, Time and What a Clean Round Looks Like
Score for a clean solitaire round is 6000 points before the time penalty, and the time penalty subtracts 1 point for every second over the 720 second baseline, so a round that finishes at 13 minutes and 30 seconds (810 seconds) lands at 5910 points. The 3 components of the final number are the build points from the 52 card moves, the 4 suit foundation bonus of 500 points each, and the stock recycle cost of 100 points per recycle, and a player who never recycles the stock keeps all 300 recycle points that a 3 recycle round would spend.
Time to first legal move is under 2 seconds on a 500 ms round trip connection, and the 52 card deal animation plays in 1.4 seconds at 60 frames per second, so the felt is showing the 7 columns before the 24 card stock has finished its face down shuffle. A beginner's first completed round typically lands between 11 and 19 minutes, and the 13 minute average is the number the 52 card 4 suit board settles on once the 7 column opening deal is no longer a mystery. The green felt background stays at a fixed 100 percent opacity under every card, and the 4 foundation piles sit in the top right corner of the 1024 pixel minimum layout, which is the smallest window this page renders without overlap.
Where to start
1. FREECELL SOLITAIRE PLAY ITFreeCell, no downloadFreeCell is a variant of solitaire where 8 cards sit in open cells and 4 foundations must be filled.
2. SPIDER SOLITAIRE PLAY ITSpider Solitaire, freeSpider Solitaire is a solitaire card game in which you play 2 decks of 104 cards against a set of 10 columns.