Easthaven Solitaire: a Klondike cousin where the stock deals to every column
Easthaven looks like a small Klondike at first: seven short columns, alternating colors, foundations from Ace to King. Then you click the stock, and instead of one card landing on a waste pile, a card drops onto every column at once. That one twist changes how you think about the whole game. You can't pick through the stock for the card you want; you have to get the table ready before each deal comes down.
The good news for a relaxed player: this site's version is generous. A solver that could see every card, including the face-down ones and the order of the stock, won 97.6% of 3,000 deals and didn't find a single one that was impossible. You'll lose games, of course, because you can't see what it sees, but the deals themselves are rarely the problem.
Easthaven by the numbers
| What we measured | Result | Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Deals won by a solver that sees every card | 97.6% (95% range 97.0–98.1%) | 3,000 |
| Deals proven impossible | 0 | 3,000 |
| Deals the solver didn't finish within its limit | 2.4% | 3,000 |
| Deals with no move among the 7 face-up cards at the start | 8.2% | 3,000 |
| Aces starting face down | about 1.06 of 4 | 3,000 |
That 97.6% is a ceiling, the best that's possible with perfect knowledge. We didn't build a simple "casual player" program for Easthaven, so we can't give you a floor figure like the 42.3% on our Klondike page. What the table does say is that very few deals are hopeless from the start.
Easthaven rules for this site, point by point
- One deck. 21 cards go into seven columns of three, with only the top card of each column face up. The other 31 cards form the stock.
- Dealing: each click on the stock puts one card face up on every column, left to right. After four full deals, the last click has only three cards, which go on the first three columns. There's no redeal: once the stock is gone, it's gone.
- Building: down one rank in alternating colors, as in Klondike.
- Moving runs: a tidy run of face-up cards moves as one unit.
- Empty columns accept any card or run, not just a King.
- Foundations build up by suit from Ace to King.
- You're allowed to deal even when a column is empty.
Why this site's rules are so forgiving
Two rules do most of the work. First, you can move whole runs, so a long stack can be shifted to free the card under it. Second, any card can go into an empty column, not only a King. We tested how much the first rule matters by running the same solver with one-card-at-a-time moves instead. With that stricter rule, it proved at least about 37% of deals impossible (in a smaller sample of 300). With run moves, as you get here, it proved none impossible. Run moves are the main reason Easthaven is so winnable on this site.
Habits that help a casual player
Get ready before every deal
Each deal covers every column with a new card. Before you click, make every useful move you can, especially ones that put a face-down card on top or build a tidy run. Once the new cards land, those moves may be blocked.
Treat the deals as a countdown
There are only five deals and no redeal. Count them. By the last one, you want as few buried cards as possible.
Reach the hidden cards before the stock buries them
Fourteen cards start face down, two under each top card. Every deal buries them further, so dig into the columns early, before the stock covers them.
Use empty columns flexibly
Because any card can go into an empty column, a space is a great place to park the top of a long run while you sort out what's under it. Just remember the next deal will put a card there too.
Don't fret about a quiet start
In 8.2% of our deals, none of the seven face-up cards could move at the start. That's no reason to worry: deal once and the table changes completely.
Common slip-ups
- Dealing the stock the moment you run out of obvious moves, without checking for a run you could have shifted.
- Letting a column grow long with jumbled cards; every deal makes it worse.
- Forgetting that there's no redeal, and saving a card for "later" in the stock.
- Sending cards to the foundations too early and losing a place to build on.
Features on this page
Easthaven is free here, with no download and no sign-up. You get big, clear cards with zoom, Hint, unlimited Undo (handy for testing whether to deal now or later), Restart, Auto Play and drag-and-drop or tap-to-move. The game tracks wins, time and moves, and you can mute the sound, go fullscreen or change the table color. It plays in any modern browser on computer, tablet or phone.
The research behind these numbers, step by step
The play-solitaire-free-online.us team at Solitairen OOD ran this study in September 2026.
- Rules from our game code. This site's Klondike engine has an "easthaven" setting: seven columns of three with the top card up, a 31-card stock that deals one card to each column with no redeal, alternating-color building, run moves, and any card into an empty column. Dealing with an empty column is allowed.
- Rebuilding the game. We wrote Easthaven as a program the solver could search through.
- Numbered deals. 3,000 deals for the site's rules, each shuffled from a numbered seed, plus 300 deals with one-card-at-a-time moves for comparison.
- The player. A "thoughtful" solver that knows the face-down cards and the order of the stock, which no real player does. It tries moves depth-first and makes the standard safe automatic moves to the foundations. That makes its result a ceiling.
- Running it. Each deal got up to 100,000 positions. Under the site's rules, 97.6% were solved, 2.4% undecided and none proven impossible.
- Published comparison. Blake & Gent (2026) studied East Haven, but with a stricter rule where runs can't be moved as a unit. Because the rules differ, we don't compare our number with theirs.
- Margin of error. The 95% range for the solved share is 97.0% to 98.1%.
- Limits. This is a ceiling. A player who can't see the hidden cards or the stock will win less often, and we don't yet have a floor figure for this game.
The code behind the test
Easthaven lives in easthaven.py, written in Python 3.11 using only the standard library. The solver is a depth-first search that keeps a set of positions it has already visited, so it never searches the same one twice, and it skips pointless moves like shifting a whole column into an empty one. A shared runner split the 3,000 deals across 19 worker processes on a 20-core machine, and the run took about 7 minutes. Each 95% range comes from the Wilson score method.
Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, helped us build and review the program and draft the words on this page. None of the figures came from the AI; they all come from running the solver.
By Admin, play-solitaire-free-online.us (Solitairen OOD). Research dated September 19, 2026.
Questions new players ask
What separates Easthaven from ordinary Klondike?
The stock deals a card onto every column instead of onto a waste pile, there's no redeal, and any card can fill an empty column. See Klondike for comparison.
Can I choose which column gets a card?
No. Each deal goes to every column in order, left to right.
Is Easthaven hard?
It takes some planning, but on this site almost every deal can be won with perfect knowledge. Losses are usually down to timing.
Can I deal with an empty column?
Yes. The deal simply puts a card in it.
Which game should an Easthaven fan try next?
Scorpion also deals its stock onto the columns, and Yukon is another Klondike cousin.