What percentage of solitaire games are winnable?
Not every randomly shuffled solitaire game can be won. The percentage depends on the game and its rules. It also matters whether you mean “a solution exists” or “a player finds that solution.”
For one well-studied form of Klondike, roughly 82% of deals have a solution. Blake and Gent’s Solvitaire research studies the “thoughtful” game, where the identities of hidden cards are known. This is a result for the rules studied, not a promised win rate for a person or an app. Read the research →
Winnable is not the same as won
A winnable deal has at least one legal path from its original layout to all four completed foundations. Your win rate is the fraction of your attempts that you actually finish. Those measure different things.
You can lose a solvable deal after making a reasonable choice without knowing what was under a card. You can also spend a long time on a deal that had no solution in the first place. A loss by itself doesn’t tell you which happened.
| Question | What determines the answer? |
|---|---|
| Does this deal have a solution? | The card order and the exact rules. |
| Will I find the solution? | Your choices, information, and how you use Hint and Undo. |
| Does this app deal only solvable games? | The selected deal type. Random and preselected winnable deals are different. |
What about Draw 1 and Draw 3 win percentages?
Draw 1 exposes one stock card at a time; Draw 3 exposes a group with only the top card available. Stock-pass limits and whether cards can move back from foundations also affect what can be solved. A percentage without those rules is missing important context.
When comparing your own results, keep the draw mode and deal type the same. Compare Random Shuffle with Random Shuffle, and Winning Deal with Winning Deal. Our Draw 1 versus Draw 3 guide explains how the choice changes play.
Is every game of solitaire winnable?
No—not with an unfiltered random shuffle. Some card orders leave no legal route to the finish. A mode that selects known winnable layouts can ensure a solution exists from the start, but it cannot guarantee that every sequence of moves will find it.
The Original Solitaire+ offers both Random Shuffle and Winning Deal. Choose the uncertainty of a real deck or the reassurance of a solvable starting layout.
Can I win solitaire every time?
There is no strategy that wins every possible random deal. To learn, start with winnable deals, examine the hidden columns, and reconsider earlier moves with Undo. For practical habits, read how to win solitaire more often.
What does Peek change?
Peek changes what you can see. It does not change the deal, move cards, or turn an unwinnable layout into a winnable one. Hold it to reveal the face-down tableau cards while considering a move, or at the end of the hand to see where the missing card was.
Knowing where a card is can explain a frustrating hand. It is still up to you to decide what to do next.
How should I track my own win rate?
Use wins divided by games played, and compare like with like. Mixing Daily Challenges, random shuffles and selected winning deals hides more than it reveals. Keep Draw 1 and Draw 3 separate, too.
Research reference: Charlie Blake and Ian P. Gent, The Winnability of Klondike Solitaire and Many Other Patience Games. The study distinguishes rule variants and full-information play; its result should not be presented as a universal human win rate.