Solitaire Treasures

This is Klondike solitaire with one change that matters more than anything else on the feature list: every deal is guaranteed winnable. In standard Klondike a substantial share of hands cannot be solved no matter what you do, which means that when you lose you never quite know whether you misplayed or were simply dealt a dead hand. Removing that ambiguity changes the game. Losing now means you made a mistake, and knowing that is what turns a time-filler into something you actually think about. It also uses draw one rather than draw three, which further removes luck from the equation — you see the whole stock, so the only variable left is your ordering.

Build the four foundations up from ace to king in suit. Build the tableau down in alternating colours, moving single cards or ordered runs. Empty columns take kings only. Turn the stock one card at a time and work through it as often as you need. Because the deal is solvable, a position you cannot move from is a position you created — undoing and trying a different order is the intended response, not cheating.

With draw one and a guaranteed solution, the whole game becomes a sequencing problem. Before you make an obvious move, check whether it closes off another one — sending a two to a foundation early is the classic example, because that two is often what you needed to move a three later. Expose face-down cards first, always. Work the longest column down before the short ones, since that is where the hidden information is concentrated. And when you stall, do not reshuffle the stock hoping for something new; the stock does not change. Go back and reorder the tableau moves instead.