Alaska Solitaire: Yukon's cousin, where suits decide everything

Alaska is dealt exactly like Yukon — all 52 cards on the table, most of them face up, no stock — but it changes the building rule. Instead of alternating colors, cards go on a card of the same suit, and they can go either one rank up or one rank down. A 7 of diamonds can sit on the 8 or the 6 of diamonds.

What should a beginner expect from it? Our quick answer: this is a deal-it-and-think game, not a deal-it-and-go game. A solver that could see every card proved at least 75.6% of deals winnable. A casual computer player that couldn't see hidden cards or undo won only 1.5%.

What our Alaska tests show

With perfect knowledge, between about three quarters and 93% of deals can be won. Casual play wins almost none. An important caveat: our Alaska bot is a weak player. The 1.5% is a floor that shows how little you get from moving on instinct — not what a thoughtful person should expect.

Alaska rules on this site

• Seven columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards.
• The bottom five cards of each longer column are face up; the rest are face down. The single card in column one is face up.
• No stock. All cards are dealt at the start.
• Building: a card goes onto a card of the same suit that is one rank higher or one rank lower.
• Group moves: any face-up card can be moved together with every card on top of it, as long as the card you're moving fits its destination.
• Empty columns accept only a King and whatever is on it.
• Foundations are built up by suit, Ace to King.

Autopilot vs. a plan: what the gap means

In Yukon, the rule is "opposite color," so every card has two possible targets in the columns. In Alaska it's "same suit, up or down," which also gives two targets — but both are in the same suit, and they're often buried in the same place. That makes Alaska feel tight at the start and very open once the right cards are exposed.

A casual player (or our bot) tends to spend the tight early phase moving groups sideways. The bot managed only about 5 cards to the foundations per game. The solver's much higher numbers come from choosing, right from the first move, which column to open.

A curious detail from the bot runs: it won slightly more often (1.9%) when two or more Aces started face down than when one or none did (1.1%). With such a weak bot and so few wins, we wouldn't build a strategy on it — but it's a reminder that a buried Ace is not a lost game.

Practical ways to beat the baseline

Map the suits first

Take a moment to find where each suit's low cards are. Because every link must stay in suit, one misplaced card can freeze a whole column.

Remember you can build up as well as down

Building up and down gives you more choices than it first seems. A 9 of spades can take either the 10 or the 8 of spades on top of it. Look for the one that uncovers something.

Dig into the long columns

The seventh column hides six cards. Freeing the cards underneath is how you turn a tight Alaska deal into an open one.

Wait for the right King

Only a King can take an empty column. Choose the one whose pile is covering the most face-down cards.

Undo to compare two lines

With big group moves, each choice changes a lot. Try one route for a few moves; if no hidden card has turned over, back up.

Where Alaska games get stuck

• Shuffling the same group between two columns.
• Building up on one card and down on another in the same suit, splitting a suit across two piles that then block each other.
• Emptying a column without a King ready to go.
• Assuming the deal is lost. Only 7.2% were proven impossible.

Play Alaska here

Free, in your browser, on any computer, tablet or phone. Nothing to download; no account or email. The cards are large and clear with a zoom control, and you get Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play. Move cards by dragging or by tapping the card and its target. The game counts wins, time and moves for the current game, and offers sound on/off, fullscreen and a choice of table colors. No gambling and nothing for sale.

If Alaska feels too tight, try Yukon, which uses the same deal with alternating colors. Baker's Solitaire is another follow-suit challenge, and Golf is a light change of pace.

The research behind these numbers, step by step

These results come from tests run in September 2026 by the play-solitaire-free-online.us team at Solitairen OOD, using Alaska as it's coded on this site.

1. Rules from our game code. The same deal as Yukon (columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; last five face up; no stock), with moves allowed onto a card of the same suit one rank up or down, group moves allowed, and only Kings into empty columns.
2. Game rebuilt in code. We programmed Alaska in the same module as Yukon, switching the building rule.
3. Numbered deals. Seeds 1 to 10,000 for the bot; 500 of those for the solver. These are our own deal numbers.
4. Two players. A bot that looks up to 300 positions ahead on visible cards and never undoes (a low floor), and a solver that sees every card and searches up to 50,000 positions per deal (a ceiling).
5. Running it. 10,000 bot games and 500 solver deals. The solver's unsettled deals (17.2%) are reported as undecided, not counted as wins or losses.
6. Published comparison. Alaska isn't covered by Blake & Gent (2026), and we found no other published figure to compare with.
7. Margin of error. The "95% range" for the solver's proven wins runs from 71.6% to 79.2%, meaning the true share for our solver is almost certainly in that band.
8. Limits. The bot is weak at Alaska; 500 solver deals is a modest sample; and with 17.2% undecided, the honest answer is a range (75.6% to 92.8%), not a single number.

The code behind the test

Alaska runs in yukon.py, written in Python 3.11 with only the standard library; a single rule setting switches it from Yukon to Alaska. The bot's look-ahead explores up to 300 positions each turn on face-up cards, scoring foundation cards, hidden cards and good or bad links. The solver is a depth-first search limited to 50,000 positions per deal. Unlike the Yukon solver, it makes no automatic foundation moves in Alaska: every move, including each card sent home, is a choice it searches. runner.py shared the deals among 19 worker processes on a 20-core machine: just over a minute for the 10,000 bot games and three and a half minutes for the 500 solver deals. Percentages use Wilson score intervals.

We used an AI assistant — Claude, from Anthropic — to help write and review this code and to draft the page. Every number comes from running the simulations, not from the AI, and we reviewed the results before publishing.

By Admin, play-solitaire-free-online.us (Solitairen OOD). Research dated September 18, 2026.

Questions new players ask

What's the difference between Alaska and Yukon?

The deal and group moves are the same. Yukon builds down in alternating colors; Alaska builds in the same suit, up or down.

Can most Alaska deals be won?

With every card known, at least 75.6% were proven winnable in our test, and only 7.2% proven impossible.

Why is the casual win rate so low?

Our bot can't undo or see hidden cards, and Alaska rewards careful planning more than quick moves. Its 1.5% is a floor, not a forecast.

Can I build down and up on the same pile?

Each card only needs to fit the card it lands on, one rank up or down in the same suit. Mixing directions is legal, but it can make a pile harder to unpick later.

How long are the bot's winning games, in moves?

Our bot's 151 wins averaged about 111 moves.