Russian Solitaire: play free online
Russian Solitaire spreads the full deck across seven columns and then asks for something Yukon does not: inside the tableau, every build stays in one suit. The 5♠️ goes on the 6♠️, and on nothing else in the deck.
It is Yukon's board and Yukon's generous pickup — any face-up card leaves with the whole pile sitting on it — under one stricter rule. And the rule rewrites the arithmetic. When builds alternate color, a red 7 has two possible homes, the 8♠️ and the 8♣️. Here the 7♥️ has exactly one, the 8♥️, so while that 8 is buried the 7 is not going anywhere.
So there are fewer moves available at any moment, and each one deserves a longer look before you commit to it.
Setting up Russian Solitaire
The deal uses all 52 cards and holds nothing back:
- Tableau: seven columns that grow from left to right — one card in column one, six in column two, and one more in each of the rest, up to eleven in column seven. That lone card is face up. Every other column shows its last five cards and buries the remainder, from one buried card in column two to six in column seven.
- Foundations: four piles at the top of the board, empty at the start, each to be filled from the ace up to the king. A pile takes its suit from whichever ace lands on it first.
- Nothing to draw: there is no stock and no waste pile. 21 of the 52 cards are hidden; the other 31 are looking at you.
How to win at Russian Solitaire
Carry every suit, in full and in order from the ace to the king, onto one of the four foundations. In Russian those piles double as a holding pen you will want to raid: a 4♦️ sent up early is the only landing spot the 3♦️ will ever have, so pulling it back down is an ordinary move here rather than a rescue.
Russian Solitaire rules
- Any face-up card can be picked up, including one buried mid-column, and the cards above it come away in the same motion. That traveling group does not need to be in sequence — the game only checks the card underneath your finger.
- Columns build down in suit. The 9♣️ accepts the 8♣️ and no other card: same suit, one rank lower. The 9♣️ also has to be exposed at the foot of its column, not stuck halfway up it.
- An empty column is a king's seat. He may walk in alone or drag his entire load with him. No other rank can open a column.
- Foundations rise one rank at a time within a suit, beginning with the ace. Only a column's last card may go up there, and never a group in one move.
- A hidden card flips itself face up the moment the last card covering it leaves.
- A card on a foundation is not gone for good. Take the top one back down when a column needs it as a landing spot.
- Tap and the game decides where the card goes; drag it and you decide. If a tap finds nowhere legal, the card shakes and stays put.
- When the table has no move left, the game says so. The board shows No moves available, and from there it is Undo or New Game.
Russian Solitaire tips and strategy
- Read the suits before you read the ranks. Move nothing until you have hunted for same-suit pairs that touch in rank. A 7 and a 6 of hearts two columns apart is the move a whole deal can turn on.
- Every face-down card is a closed door. Your one landing spot is often the card you cannot see, and it stays out of reach until it is uncovered. Faced with two moves of similar worth, pick the one that reveals something.
- The single-card column is your first empty space. One landing spot frees it, which no other column can promise. Save it for a king.
- A king sitting on hidden cards is a wall. Only the queen of his own suit may go on him, and until his own queen is up on a foundation the one place he can leave for is an empty column, so opening one becomes the priority.
- Low cards do more work in the tableau than on a foundation. The 6♣️ left in its column is the one place the 5♣️ can ever go. Send it up at the first opportunity and you have put away the thing you will be hunting for ten moves later.
- Undo rewinds without a cap. It earns its keep here: whole runs travel at once, so one poor choice reorders a lot of cards. When you genuinely cannot see a move, Hint will point to one from the current position.
If the suit rule feels too tight, Yukon deals the same way and picks cards up the same way while letting red sit on black — far more moves available at any moment. Scorpion keeps the pickup and the suit rule and throws the foundations out altogether: there, a finished suit is built on the table itself. And if you like thinking in suits but want somewhere to park an awkward card, Baker's Game adds four free cells.