Diplomat Solitaire: a two-deck game you can win about half the time on instinct
Diplomat is the relaxed member of the two-deck family. Every card in the starting layout is face up, the columns are short, and there's a long stock to draw from. It looks like a lot of cards — 104 of them — but it's one of the more forgiving games on this site.
We tested that with a computer player that plays the way many people do: it looks a few moves ahead at what's visible, has no idea what's coming up in the stock, and never takes a move back. It won 47.9% of 2,000 games. Even the games it lost usually went a long way: on average it got 76 of the 104 cards home.
Diplomat in numbers
| Measurement | Result | Games | Player |
|---|---|---|---|
| Win rate without Undo or knowing the stock | 47.9% (95% range 45.7–50.0%) | 2,000 | Our look-ahead bot |
| Cards on the foundations at the end, win or lose | 76 of 104 on average | 2,000 | Same bot |
| Moves in a winning game, including each stock card turned | about 351 | 957 wins | Same bot |
| Deals with an Ace ready to play from the opening layout | 49.2% | 2,000 | Reading the deal |
About half the time you'll have an Ace to play on the very first move, and about half the time a casual approach wins the whole game. That's a friendly baseline. With Undo and a little patience, you should be able to beat it.
How Diplomat works on this site
- Two decks shuffled together, 104 cards.
- Eight columns of four cards, all face up.
- Eight foundations, two for each suit, each built from Ace up to King.
- A 72-card stock. Turn it one card at a time onto the waste pile. There's no second pass: when the stock is gone, it's gone.
- Building in the columns: down by one rank, any suit. A 5 of hearts can go on any 6.
- One card at a time. You can't move runs as a group.
- Empty columns take any card.
You win when all 104 cards are on the eight foundations.
Why the casual baseline is so high here — and what it misses
Three things make Diplomat kind. Everything in the layout is visible from the start. The columns are only four cards deep, so nothing is ever buried far. And with two of every card, there's usually another place for the card you need.
What limits the casual player is the stock. There's only one pass through 72 cards, and our bot has no idea what's coming next. That's the main way games are lost: a card you needed turned up while you had nowhere to put it, and it's now under the waste pile for good.
How to win more than half
Keep the waste thin
The waste can't be recycled. Every card you leave there is a card you may never get back. Before turning the next stock card, play the top waste card if there's any sensible place for it.
Create spaces before you need them
Empty columns take any card, which makes them a perfect parking spot for a waste card you can't place yet. Clearing one four-card column early gives you a safety valve for the rest of the stock.
Keep Aces, 2s and 3s near the top
Since only one card moves at a time, a 3 with a pile of cards on top is hard to get out. Build downward on high cards when you can, and keep Aces, 2s and 3s near the surface.
Use both foundations of each suit
With two foundations per suit, you can have both clubs piles going at once. Keep both moving so no card waits for a single pile.
Test risky turns with Undo
Not sure whether to take the waste card now or turn another? Try turning. If the next card is bad news, undo and play the waste card instead. The bot can't do this.
How Diplomat games usually slip away
- Turning stock cards quickly and letting a long waste pile build up.
- Filling empty columns with cards that could have waited.
- Stacking cards on a low card you'll need soon.
- Forgetting there's only one pass through the stock.
Play Diplomat here
It's free, runs in the browser on a computer, tablet or phone, and needs no download, sign-up or email. Cards are big and easy to read, with zoom to make a two-deck layout comfortable. There's a Hint button, unlimited Undo, Restart, and Auto Play for the end of a won game, and you can drag cards or tap to move them. Wins, time and moves for the current game are on screen. Sound can be muted; fullscreen and table colors are in the settings. No gambling, no purchases.
If you like having everything on show, FreeCell is the one-deck puzzle version. For another two-deck game with a very different feel, try Spider. For a single-deck classic, go back to Klondike.
The research behind these numbers, step by step
The play-solitaire-free-online.us team at Solitairen OOD ran this test in September 2026, on Diplomat as it's coded on this site.
- Rules from our game code. 104 cards; eight columns of four, all face up; eight foundations; a 72-card stock dealt one at a time with no redeal; build down regardless of suit; one card moved at a time; any card into an empty column.
- Game rebuilt in code. We programmed Diplomat so a bot could play full games.
- Numbered deals. Seeds 1 to 2,000, our own deal numbers.
- The player. A bot that looks up to 300 positions ahead over the columns and waste, doesn't know the order of the stock, and never undoes. That makes its result a floor for a careful player.
- Running it. 2,000 complete games, each played until it was won or the bot had nothing left to do.
- Published comparison. There's no Diplomat figure in Blake & Gent (2026), and we found no other published estimate. We also didn't build a perfect-knowledge solver for Diplomat, so we can't say how many deals are winnable in principle.
- Margin of error. A "95% range" is where the true value almost certainly lies. The bot's 47.9% is really between 45.7% and 50.0%.
- Limits. One bot, one set of scoring rules, and no published figure to check it against. A different bot might do better or worse; a thoughtful human with Undo should do better.
The code behind the test
Diplomat is coded in diplomat.py, in Python 3.11 with the standard library only. Each turn, the bot runs a look-ahead search of up to 300 positions over column and waste moves, and scores the results: +50 for every card on a foundation, −6 for every card sitting on a lower card, +2 for each correct link, +12 for each empty column and −1 for each card on the waste. If nothing improves the score, it turns the next stock card. runner.py spread the 2,000 games across 19 worker processes on a 20-core machine; the run took about 14 minutes. Win-rate ranges are Wilson score intervals.
Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, helped us write and review the Diplomat code and draft this page. It did not supply the results: those came from running the bot, and we checked them before publishing.
By Admin, play-solitaire-free-online.us (Solitairen OOD). Research dated September 18, 2026.
Questions new players ask
Is Diplomat good for beginners?
Yes. All the starting cards are face up and the columns are short. A simple computer player won almost half its games.
Why are there eight foundations?
Because there are two decks: two foundations per suit, each built from Ace to King.
When the stock runs out, can I start it again?
No. Diplomat on this site has a single pass through the 72-card stock, so plan each turn.
Can a whole run be moved in one go?
No; every move shifts a single card. That's why burying a low card under a stack is costly.
How many moves does a Diplomat win take?
Our bot's wins averaged about 351 moves, counting each stock card turned. It's a longer game than one-deck solitaire.