Solitaire is the name of many card games that are played by one person. Solitaire is usually played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards. The games are also called patience. In the most popular kind of solitaire, known as Klondike solitaire, the player deals seven cards in a horizontal row, the first one faceup, and the rest facedown. Then the player deals a card faceup on the second card, and a card facedown on each of the remaining five cards. The deal continues until all seven piles have a card facing up. The row of seven piles is called the tableau.
One faceup card may be moved on top of a second faceup card if it is one lower in rank and the opposite color of the second card. Any cards that have been placed on the first card move with it to the second card.
When an ace is exposed, it is put in a row above the main piles. The aces are known as foundations. The object is to stack all the cards by suits and in order in the top piles, from ace to king. The top card in any pile in the tableau may be moved to the top row if it can be placed on the card ranking just below it in the same suit. A facedown card that becomes the top card in a tableau pile may be turned faceup. If a tableau pile becomes empty, a king may be moved to the space. Undealt cards are turned over one at a time. Each is either played on a pile or placed faceup on a discard pile. The player may only go through the deck once.
