Easthaven Solitaire: Klondike's layout with a Spider-style deal

Easthaven is the game that sits right between the two families on our site. The tableau looks like a small Klondike: seven columns, a few cards face down in each, building down in alternating colors. But the stock works like Spider's. There is no waste pile and no going back through the deck; each click on the stock drops one fresh card onto every column at once. That combination makes Easthaven a natural bridge for Klondike players who are curious about Spider.

How winnable is it? We gave a solver x-ray vision — every face-down card and the full stock order — and it beat 97.6% of 3,000 deals played to this site's rules, without finding one it could prove unwinnable. That is a ceiling — no player gets to see the hidden cards — but it tells you that on the rules here, the deal is almost never what beats you.

Easthaven on the difficulty ladder

The two solver ceilings for Easthaven and four-suit Spider are close, which fits the family resemblance: in both games you deal a card onto every column and have to cope with whatever lands. Remember these are upper limits; a person without x-ray vision wins fewer.

Easthaven's rules on this site

• Deck: one standard 52-card deck.
• Tableau: seven columns of three cards; only the top card of each column is face up.
• Stock: the remaining 31 cards. A click sends a fresh face-up card to every column in turn, from left to right. The last deal has only three cards, so it goes onto the first three columns.
• No waste, no redeal. Once the stock is gone, it is gone.
• Dealing with a gap: you may deal even when a column is empty.
• Building: down in alternating colors, as in Klondike.
• Moving runs: an ordered run moves as a unit.
• Empty columns: any card or run can fill them, not just a King.
• Foundations: four, one per suit, Ace to King.

The rule that makes the difference

We tested Easthaven twice: once with the site's rule that ordered runs move together, and once with a stricter rule that lets you move only one card at a time, which is how the game is described in the published research we checked. The difference was dramatic. With runs moving, our solver proved no deal impossible at all. With single-card moves, it proved 42.3% of deals impossible on a smaller set of 300 deals (95% range 36.9% to 48.0%). Being able to shift a whole run is what keeps Easthaven so open on this site, so use it: think in runs, not single cards.

Four habits of good Easthaven players

Tidy first, deal second

About one deal in twelve, 8.2%, starts with the seven visible cards unable to go anywhere, and your only option is the stock. In the rest, make every useful tableau move before you touch the stock, because each deal covers every column with a new card.

Aces are rarely buried deep

On average just over one of the four Aces (1.06) starts face down in the tableau. The other Aces are in the stock or face up, so most of your early work is building down, not digging.

Empty a column before a deal if you can

Because any card can fill a gap here, an empty column is a flexible parking space. Clear one before dealing and you can park a single awkward card or a whole run, rather than having the new card land in the way.

Build long runs before the stock runs out

There is no second pass. Tidy, long alternating-color runs let you move big blocks later, and once the stock is exhausted, the game becomes a pure puzzle on the table.

Easthaven mistakes to avoid

• Dealing on autopilot. Each click covers all seven columns. If you deal before tidying the tableau, you bury cards you could have used.
• Breaking runs for no gain. Runs move as a unit here, so a long ordered run is an asset. Split one only when it frees a face-down card or reaches a foundation.
• Wasting empty columns. Any card can fill a gap, which makes it tempting to drop a single card there. A gap is worth more if you save it for a long run you need to move out of the way.
• Forgetting the short last deal. The final deal gives only three cards, to the first three columns. Plan the last moves of the game around that.
• Stopping when the stock is empty. With no stock left, the rest is a pure puzzle. Undo lets you test orders freely.

Easthaven's tools

Each stock click lands a card on every column, so Undo is the tool to lean on: deal, look, and take it back if the deal came too early. Undo is unlimited, and Hint, Restart and Auto Play sit alongside it. The game is free, opens in any current browser on desktop, tablet or phone, and never asks for an account. Zoom and fullscreen keep the table readable, cards move by drag or tap, a counter follows wins, time and moves, and sound and felt color are adjustable.

How we tested Easthaven, step by step

The spidersolitaire.us team ran this test on September 19, 2026.

1. Traced the rules in our code. On this site Easthaven is a variant of the Klondike engine. It deals seven columns of three with only the uppermost card showing, keeps 31 cards in a stock that feeds every column at once and never recycles, lets you deal over a gap, builds down in alternating colors, moves ordered runs together and accepts any card in a space.
2. Rebuilt it as a program, with a second version limited to single-card moves for comparison.
3. Dealt numbered hands: seeds 1 to 3,000 for the site's rules, seeds 1 to 300 for the single-card version.
4. Chose a ceiling player. The solver sees the face-down cards and the order of the stock, so its result is an upper limit on what a person can win. It had up to 100,000 positions per deal.
5. Ran both versions and sorted every deal into won, proven impossible or undecided.
6. Compared with published research. Blake and Gent (2026) report 82.844% for East Haven, but for a stricter one-card-at-a-time rule, not the rules on this site, so the numbers cannot be compared directly. Our own single-card run did not match their figure either, which tells us our reading of that stricter version differs from theirs in a way we have not yet pinned down. We therefore quote only the result for this site's rules.
7. Worked out the margin of error. The 95% range for 97.6% is 97.0% to 98.1%.
8. Named the limits. This is a ceiling, and 2.4% of deals were left undecided.

What the Easthaven program does

easthaven.py is written in Python 3.11 and uses nothing outside the standard library. Its solver goes deep first: it follows one line of moves until it wins or runs dry, steps back, and tries the next, keeping a set of visited positions so it never repeats itself. Only foundation moves that cannot cost anything are made automatically. Across 19 processes, the 3,000 site-rule deals took about seven minutes. Every range is a Wilson score 95% interval. Claude, the Anthropic AI assistant, helped us write and check the program and draft this page; the results come from the program alone.

Easthaven questions

Is Easthaven more like Klondike or Spider?

Both. The tableau and building rules are Klondike's; the stock that deals across every column is Spider's.

Does a gap on the table stop me dealing?

Yes. Unlike Spider on this site, Easthaven lets you deal with a gap on the table.

Can any card go in an empty column?

Yes, any card or ordered run.

Is every deal winnable?

Our solver won 97.6% while seeing every card and proved none impossible, but you cannot see the hidden cards, so expect to lose some.

Which game makes a good next step?

Try one-suit Spider for the full Spider experience, Yukon for another Klondike cousin, or the games page for everything else.

By Admin, spidersolitaire.us (Solitairen OOD). Research run September 2026.