Yukon
Klondike with no stock: move whole piles of face-up cards to dig out the aces.
How to play Yukon
All 52 cards are dealt into seven columns: the first has one face-up card and the rest end with five face-up cards over a hidden block. There is no stock. Tap any face-up card to pick it up together with every card resting on top of it, then tap a destination: the card you grabbed must land on one of the opposite colour and one rank higher. The pile you carry does not need to be in order. Empty columns accept a King (with its pile), and the four foundations build up from Ace to King by suit. Double-tap a card to send it home. Clear all 52 cards to the foundations to win.
The move that makes Yukon different
Yukon looks like Klondike at first glance: seven columns, four foundations built up by suit, a tableau built down in alternating colours. Then you notice there is no stock pile. All 52 cards are on the table from the first deal, most of them face-up, and nothing is waiting in your hand. The twist is how cards move. You can grab any face-up card and carry every card sitting on top of it along for the ride, and that pile does not have to be in any order. You might haul a jumbled heap of five cards across the board just to expose the one buried card you actually needed. Only the card you grab has to land legally, on a card one rank higher in the opposite colour.
Because nothing hides in a stock, a lost game is nearly always your own doing rather than bad luck, which is exactly what makes Yukon worth replaying.
A worked example
Say a red 7 sits three cards deep in a middle column, under a messy heap whose bottom card is the 10 of clubs. In Klondike that 7 is out of reach until the heap above it comes apart in strict order, which may never happen. In Yukon you scan for an exposed red Jack. If there is one, pick up the 10 of clubs together with everything resting on it and drop the whole heap onto the Jack. The pile lands untidy, and that is fine. The red 7 is now free to move onto a black 8, and a card Klondike would have made you excavate for ten turns is working for you after two moves. That is the habit to build: stop reading piles from the top down, and start hunting for the one card in the middle whose release changes the board.
Digging out the board
- Your first priority is turning over the face-down cards at the foot of each column. Every hidden card you flip widens your options, and flips are the one thing you can never have too many of.
- The hidden cards are dealt unevenly: the leftmost column has none, and the buried blocks get deeper toward the right. All else being equal, spend your early moves digging the right side of the board.
- Use the carry-the-whole-pile move aggressively to free buried cards, even when the pile you move lands somewhere ugly. Untidy is fine. Buried is not.
- When a pile has two legal landing spots, prefer the column that is already deep and disordered, and keep your cleanest column clean. Tidy columns are where finished sequences get built, so avoid burying them under rubble you only moved to free one card.
- Free a column when you can, and remember only a King, plus whatever rides on it, can fill the space. An empty column with no King ready to take it is a wasted hole, so try to time the two together.
- Send Aces and low cards to the foundations early, but hold a middling card back if it is still anchoring a sequence you need. A double-tap sends a card home fast.
- Count your key cards. There are only two black 8s for your red 7s. If both are buried under face-down cards in the same column, dig that column before anything else.
A more generous cousin
The name is the gold rush talking. Klondike and Yukon are both named for the stretch of northwest Canada where the 1890s gold rush ran, and the family kept the theme going from there. Russian Solitaire deals the exact same layout but forces the tableau to build down in suit rather than alternating colours, which turns the identical deal into a brutally hard game. Alaska loosens that again by allowing builds in either direction. Yukon itself is the friendly one. With everything visible from the start, a careful player can win a healthy share of deals, and the whole puzzle is choosing the order in which to peel the board apart. If Klondike's endless dealing and redealing wears on you, this is the version where the game hands you all the information on turn one and simply asks you to read it well.
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Yukon: frequently asked questions
How is Yukon different from Klondike?
Yukon has no stock or waste (every card is on the table from the start) and you can move any face-up card along with the cards stacked on it, even when that group is not a tidy sequence.
What can I place on an empty column?
Only a King, or a King together with the cards piled on top of it. Freeing a column and parking a King there is one of the key tactics in Yukon.
How is the score calculated?
Your score is the number of cards on the foundations, up to 52. Completing all four foundations wins the game, and your best score is saved.
What is the biggest difference from regular Klondike?
There is no stock or waste pile. Every card is dealt to the seven columns at the start, so you never draw new cards. You work entirely with what is already on the table.
Can I really move a group of cards that is not in sequence?
Yes. You pick up any face-up card and everything piled on top of it moves too, in whatever order it happens to be. Only the card you actually grab has to land legally, on a card one rank higher and of the opposite colour.
How do the foundations work?
The four foundations build up by suit from Ace to King, exactly as in Klondike. Clearing all four, and therefore all 52 cards, wins the game.
What can go in an empty column?
Only a King, together with any cards being carried on top of it. Because empty columns are the main way to reshuffle the board, decide carefully which King earns the spot.
Is Yukon easier or harder than Klondike?
Most players find it a bit more winnable, because nothing is hidden in a stock and skilful play can rescue positions that would be dead in Klondike. The catch is that mistakes are your own, not the deal's.
Where does the name Yukon come from?
The same place Klondike gets its name: the Yukon is the corner of northwest Canada at the heart of the 1890s gold rush, and this family of solitaires picked up its names from that era. Its stricter sibling, Russian Solitaire, uses the same deal but builds down in suit.
Is Yukon free to play?
Yes. Yukon is completely free on Inkplay, with no download, no sign-up, and no in-game purchases. Open the page and play instantly on desktop or mobile.
Can I play Yukon unblocked?
Yes. Yukon runs entirely in your browser with no download, install, or plugins, so it loads instantly and keeps working even on school or work networks where bigger game sites get blocked.
More games to play
In the mood for more? Try Chess, Tic Tac Toe, Connect Four, Reversi, or browse all board games and the full games list on Inkplay. Yukon also appears in Solitaire.