Short answer: on our own tables, the easiest games to finish are FreeCell (almost every deal can be won with careful play) and Spider with 1 suit. The hardest by a wide margin is Spider with 4 suits, with Alaska and Klondike Turn 3 close behind. Everything else sits somewhere in between, and this article shows exactly where.
We built the ladder around Spider on purpose. Spider is the game most of our visitors play, and its three suit settings give you three natural rungs: gentle, serious and brutal. Once you know how a game compares to Spider 1, 2 or 4 suits, you know whether it will relax you on a Sunday afternoon or keep you up until midnight.
How we measured it
In September 2026 our team ran two different kinds of simulation on this site's own rules, written in Python with help from an AI assistant (Claude, by Anthropic) for the code and drafts. Every number below came out of running that code.
- Ladder one — a simple no-undo program. It sees only the face-up cards, just like you do, plays greedily by a short list of rules, and never takes a move back. Between 2,000 and 10,000 fresh deals per game.
- Ladder two — a solver. It sees every card, including the ones face down, and searches hard for any winning line. That tells us how many deals can be won at all.
One warning before you read the first table, and it matters: each game has its own program, and those programs are not equally clever. A weak program on a fair game looks the same as a strong program on a nasty game. So treat ladder one as a rough guide to how much a game punishes a player who never rethinks a move — not as a league table. A thoughtful human who uses Undo will beat these figures, often by a lot. They are a floor, not a ceiling.
Ladder one: how often a simple no-undo program won
| Rank | Game | Won | Deals tested |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spider, 1 suit | 52.8% | 4,000 |
| 2 | Diplomat | 47.9% | 2,000 |
| 3 | Klondike Turn 1 | 42.3% | 10,000 |
| 4 | Pyramid | 25.2% | 4,000 |
| 5 | Golf | 22.4% | 10,000 |
| 6 | Klondike Turn 3 | 10.6% | 10,000 |
| 7 | Spider, 2 suits | 5.7% | 4,000 |
| 8 | Yukon | 4.5% | 10,000 |
| 9 | Alaska | 1.5% | 10,000 |
| 10 | Spider, 4 suits | 0.2% | 2,000 |
FreeCell and Baker's Game are missing from this table on purpose: we did not run a simple no-undo program for them, so we have no figure to give you, and we are not going to guess one.
The shape of the ladder is the interesting part. Adding suits to Spider does not make it a little harder — it changes the game. Going from 1 suit to 2 suits dropped the program from 52.8% to 5.7%. Going on to 4 suits dropped it to 0.2%, which is roughly four wins in 2,000 deals. Klondike shows the same cliff in miniature: 42.3% at Turn 1 against 10.6% at Turn 3.
Ladder two: how many deals can be won at all
This second ladder answers a very different question. Forget how well anyone plays — if you could see every face-down card and replay the deal forever, what fraction of deals has a win hiding in it somewhere? Where our solver could not settle every deal within its time budget, we report an honest range: the lower number is what we proved winnable, the upper number is what remains possible once the unsolved deals are counted as winnable.
| Game | Winnable deals | Deals tested |
|---|---|---|
| FreeCell | 99.68% solved, none proven impossible | 10,000 |
| Golf | 92.7% (exact) | 10,000 |
| Klondike Turn 1 | 76.6% – 97.9% | 10,000 |
| Alaska | 75.6% – 92.8% | 10,000 |
| Yukon | 67.0% – 96.6% | 10,000 |
| Klondike Turn 3 | 66.2% – 90.5% | 10,000 |
| Pyramid | 62.2% – 86.0% | 10,000 |
| Baker's Game | 31.8% (exact) | 10,000 |
Put the two ladders side by side and the lesson jumps out. Alaska looks almost unplayable in ladder one at 1.5%, yet between 75.6% and 92.8% of Alaska deals contain a win. The deals are fine; the game simply refuses to forgive a careless move. That gap between "winnable" and "won" is where skill lives.
For Spider with 4 suits we did not run our own solver, but published solver research reports that roughly 98.5% of deals are winnable when every card is known. Hold that against the 0.2% our blind, no-undo program managed and you have the clearest picture of Spider 4 suits there is: the cards are almost never the problem, the hidden information is.
What the published research says
Our figures are ours, and they only describe the rules on this site. It is worth knowing what the academic work says too. In "The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games", published in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (volume 85, February 27, 2026), Charlie Blake and Ian Gent of the University of St Andrews computed winnability percentages for many single-deck patience games using a general solver they call Solvitaire. They describe nearly all of their results as new or as significant improvements on what was known before — which tells you how recently this ground was still unmapped.
The same paper cites a 2020 report that Microsoft's Solitaire — the Klondike almost every American learned on a work computer — was being played 100 million times a day. That is a lot of people quietly wondering whether the deal they just lost was ever winnable.
If you would rather compare yourself with people than with programs, some sites publish statistics from their own players; solitairex.io has a write-up of real-player win-rate data. Human results always sit between our two ladders: better than a blind program, well short of a solver that can see the whole deal.
Choosing your rung
- Want to relax and win most days? FreeCell or Spider 1 suit. Nothing is hidden in FreeCell, so every loss is yours to learn from.
- Want a fair fight? Klondike Turn 1 or Diplomat. Both reward planning without crushing you.
- Ready to be tested? Spider 2 suits, Klondike Turn 3 or Yukon.
- Want the deep end? Spider 4 suits, Alaska or Baker's Game, where only about one deal in three is winnable at all.
Three habits that move you up the ladder
- Uncover before you tidy. In Spider, Yukon and Klondike, a move that turns over a face-down card is usually worth more than a move that only looks neat. Hidden cards are the real enemy.
- Guard your empty columns. An empty column in Spider is the most valuable thing on the table. Do not fill it with the first king that wanders past — use it to unpick a tangled pile, then rebuild.
- Treat Undo as part of the game. Our no-undo program lost thousands of deals that a person could have saved by stepping back two moves. Alaska at 1.5% versus 75.6% – 92.8% winnable is the proof.
How to play any of these games here
Everything on this site is completely free, with no ads of any kind, no pop-ups and no paywalls. There is nothing to download or install, and no sign-up, account or email address is ever needed — open the home page or the games list, pick a game and you are dealt in. It runs in any modern browser on desktop, tablet or phone.
The cards are deliberately large and clear, with readable text, which helps if your eyes get tired, and there is a zoom control to make the board bigger still. Move cards by drag and drop or a simple tap, whichever suits you.
Every feature is available to everyone, always:
- Hint when a position has you stuck.
- Unlimited Undo — use it as much as you like.
- Restart to take the same deal from the top.
- Auto Play to finish a game once it is solved.
- Wins, time and moves tracked for the current game.
- Turn 1 and Turn 3 draw modes in Klondike.
- Sound off, fullscreen and table color settings.
There is no gambling, nothing to buy and no timer nagging you to hurry. These games exist for enjoyment. You can read more about the site any time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the hardest solitaire game?
Of the games on this site, Spider with 4 suits. Our simple no-undo program won 0.2% of 2,000 deals, the lowest figure we recorded, even though published solver work says about 98.5% of Spider deals are winnable when every card is visible.
What is the easiest solitaire game?
FreeCell, if you measure by how many deals can be won: our solver found a win in 99.68% of 10,000 deals and proved none of the rest impossible. Among the games we tested with a no-undo program, Spider 1 suit came out easiest at 52.8%.
Why are some numbers a range instead of one figure?
Because our solver could not finish every deal in the time allowed. The lower number counts only deals proved winnable; the upper number assumes every unfinished deal turns out to be winnable. The truth is somewhere between, and we would rather show you the range than pick a number.
Does a low win rate mean the game is unfair?
No. Alaska and Yukon both have plenty of winnable deals, but they punish one bad move. A low score in ladder one means "unforgiving," not "impossible."
Should I expect to win as often as your program?
You should expect to do better. Our program never undoes a move and never looks more than a step ahead. With Undo, Restart and a little patience, most players beat those figures once they know a game.
Is Turn 3 really that much harder than Turn 1?
Yes. Same game, same deck, different access to the stock — and our program fell from 42.3% at Turn 1 to 10.6% at Turn 3 across 10,000 deals each.
Admin, for the spidersolitaire.us team.
Sources
- Blake, C. & Gent, I. (2026), The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, vol. 85
- The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games. JAIR article page
- Solitairex.io. Data Insights and Strategies to Improve Your Win Rate