Klondike Turn 3 for everyday players: handling the three-card stock
Klondike Turn 3 uses the same seven columns and the same building rules as ordinary Klondike. The one change is the stock: each click turns over three cards, and only the top one of those three can be played. That single rule turns a relaxed game into a puzzle about timing, because the card you need is often sitting right under the one you can reach.
This page is a hands-on guide to handling that stock. If you want the full statistics for Turn 3, including how many deals can be won at all, they're on our Solitaire Turn 3 page. Here we stick to technique.
What happens each time you click the stock
Think of the stock as a line of 24 cards cut into groups of three. When you click, the next group lands face up on the waste, fanned so you can see all three, but only the top card is free. Play it, and the card beneath becomes free. Don't play it, and the next click covers that whole group with three new cards.
- With the 24 cards that start in the stock, a full pass shows you 8 groups, so only 8 cards are reachable straight away: the 3rd, 6th, 9th and so on.
- Every card you take from the waste shifts the groups for the rest of that pass and the next one. A different set of cards becomes reachable.
- Once the stock pile runs dry, the waste flips back over to become a fresh stock. On this site there's no limit to the number of passes.
- Everything else is standard Klondike: build down in alternating colors, move runs as a unit, only Kings into empty columns, foundations from Ace to King by suit.
If you'd rather see every stock card in turn, switch back to Klondike Turn 1.
Reading the stock on your first pass
Your first trip through the stock is a scouting run. Before you commit to anything, go through it once and notice what's there.
- Note the reachable cards. Those 8 top cards are the ones you can use without changing anything.
- Note the "almost" cards. A card sitting second in a group becomes reachable if you play the card on top of it. Those are the cards worth unlocking.
- Look for Aces and 2s under the surface. A buried Ace in the stock is worth taking the top card to get to, even if that top card isn't much use.
- Use Undo freely. If you go round once and realise you took the wrong card early, back up. Undo is unlimited here.
Getting the right card to the top of the waste
Shift the groups on purpose
Playing one card from the waste moves every later card one place forward in the order. That means you can deliberately take a card to bring a different card to the top on the next pass. Good Turn 3 players do this on purpose: they take a harmless card now so that a card they need will land on top next time.
Count what's left before you click
When there are only one or two cards left in the stock, the next click shows just those. Near the end of a pass, the grouping changes, and cards that were stuck in the middle of a group can suddenly come up on top.
Don't clear the waste too early
If you play every card you can from the waste as soon as possible, the stock gets shorter and the groups shift in ways you didn't plan. Sometimes it's better to leave a playable card where it is until the tableau really needs it.
Leave two homes open for the next card
In Turn 3 you can't count on getting a particular card quickly, so it pays to keep several places open for the next card. A column ending in a red 8 and another ending in a black 8 give you two homes for any 7.
When to play from the waste, and when to hold back
| Situation | Play it | Hold it |
|---|---|---|
| The card is an Ace or a 2 | Yes, always | |
| Playing it uncovers a card you need | Yes | |
| It fits on the tableau but blocks a column you want to clear | Hold it | |
| It would go to a foundation while a lower card of the other color is still stuck | Usually hold | |
| Taking it shifts a needed card onto the top for next pass | Yes, on purpose |
One stuck Ace, two ways out: an example
Say the stock turns up a group showing the 4 of hearts on top, with the Ace of spades just under it. You have no home for the 4 of hearts, so it looks like a dead group. But if a black 5 sits at the bottom of any column, you can put the 4 of hearts on it, and the Ace of spades is suddenly free to go straight to the foundation.
Now say there's no black 5 anywhere. You can't reach that Ace on this pass. The fix is to change the grouping: take one card from an earlier group on the next pass, and the whole order shifts by one. The Ace may then land on top of its own group. It won't always work, but it's the key Turn 3 skill, and Undo lets you test it without risk.
Mistakes Turn 3 players make
- Clicking through the stock without looking. Every group you skip is a decision.
- Treating Turn 3 like Turn 1. You can't wait for a card to come round quickly, so you have to plan further ahead.
- Emptying a column with no King ready. An empty column only helps when a King can use it.
- Giving up after one bad pass. The next pass shows a different mix of cards.
What our tests say, in brief
The play-solitaire-free-online.us team at Solitairen OOD tested Turn 3 in September 2026. This page and the Solitaire Turn 3 page run the same engine with the same rules, so the same figures apply:
- A simple program that never undoes a move and never looks ahead won 10.6% of 10,000 Turn 3 deals, against 42.3% at Turn 1. That's how much the three-card turn changes things for a player on autopilot.
- The games it did win took an average of 3.8 passes through the stock, against 2.3 at Turn 1. Expect to go round more often.
Our method in steps: we read the rules from this site's code, rebuilt the game in Python 3.11 (standard library only, klondike.py), dealt 10,000 numbered deals across 19 worker processes, and worked out 95% ranges with the Wilson method (10.0–11.2% for the win rate). We had help from an AI assistant, Claude by Anthropic, in writing and checking the program and in drafting this playbook. The figures come only from running the code. The full research write-up, including a solver that sees every card, is on the Turn 3 page.
By Admin, play-solitaire-free-online.us (Solitairen OOD). Research dated September 18, 2026.
Stock-handling questions from casual players
Three cards show up, so why is only one of them playable?
That's the Turn 3 rule. The other two cards are only there so you can plan; they become playable once the card above them is used.
Why does the stock look different on my second trip through it?
The cards stay in the same order, but the groups of three move whenever you take a card from the waste. That's why a pass can look different from the last one.
How many passes am I allowed?
As many as you like. There's no limit on this site.
Is this the same game as Solitaire Turn 3?
Yes, with the same rules. This page is the technique guide; Solitaire Turn 3 has the full numbers.
What's a good game after Turn 3?
Easthaven deals from the stock in a different way, and Golf is a quick change of pace.