Rules for Klondike Holdout

Family: Klondike
Categories: Popular
Variants: Klondike Familiar, Klondike Easy, Klondike Strict, Double Klondike,Gargantua,Thumb and Pouch
Also Known As:

This variant of the old standard Klondike was invented especially for Solitaire Till Dawn X. It offers the player some interesting choices and a chance for strategic play, and can be at least once in five games, probably more if you’re good. We’ve adjust the usual “casino” scoring in this version: each play costs you $52 as usual, but you get only $3 back for each card played to the foundations. If you can turn a profit, you’re doing okay!

Layout

There are four foundations, which are initially empty. There are seven tableau piles, fanned down. The first tableau starts with one card, the second with two cards, and so on to the seventh, which starts with seven cards. The top card of each tableau is face up and the rest are face down. Two “holdout” or reserve spaces and a wastepile start out empty. The remaining cards are kept face down in the hand.

Play

Tableaus build down, alternating red and black. The top card of the wastepile and full or partial builds from the tableaus may be built onto the tableaus. Only Kings or builds whose bottom card is a King may be played to an empty tableau pile.

Foundations build up in suit. Top cards of tableaus and wastepile are available for building onto the foundations. Only an Ace may be played to an empty foundation.

Each of the two “holdout” spaces can hold one card, which can be taken from the top of any tableau or the wastepile. Cards in the holdouts can be built onto the tableaus or the foundations (but not the wastepile!) by following the usual rules.

Dealing

You may deal at any time by taking one card from the hand and turning it face up onto the wastepile. There are no redeals: when the hand is empty, dealing is no longer allowed.

Goal

The goal is to move all the cards onto the foundations. Solitaire Till Dawn uses a variation of casino scoring by charging $52 a game, and paying back $3 (instead of the usual $5) for every card played to the foundations. (It’s not real money, so don’t worry!)

Tips

Build the foundations evenly: don’t play up a black 8 until you’re sure you won’t need to put a red 7 on it to make progress in the tableaus.
Play cards from the hand before playing from the tableau.
Try to place Kings in empty tableau piles; an unplaced King in the discard pile can block everything below it.
Try hard to expose face down cards.
Use the two holdouts carefully. If both are empty, you can sometimes use them to rearrange cards that would otherwise be blocked. For example, you can move a red King to a holdout, leaving an empty space for a black King from the wastepile; then move a red Queen onto the black King, leaving a new empty space for the original red King.
At the end of the game, you can use the holdouts as storage for cards from the tableaus so that you can turn up a couple of new hidden cards, or make empty spaces for Kings.
Unlike some Klondike variants, you can move partial builds among the tableaus. This means that you can move a black four off of the 5 of Hearts and onto the 5 of Diamonds, leaving the 5 of Hearts free to go to the foundations. You’ll want to build evenly during most of the game, but near the end you may be able to improve your score or even eke out a win by using this technique to move several more cards to the foundations.