Diplomat Solitaire: what 32 face-up cards tell you at the start

Diplomat is a two-pack game with a very open opening. Eight columns of four cards are dealt, and every one of those 32 cards is face up. The other 72 wait in the stock, which you go through just once. With so much on show, you can size up a Diplomat deal in a few seconds.

We dealt 2,000 Diplomat games under this site's rules and looked at each opening. In 49.2% of them an Ace could be played straight from the table. Then a computer player that doesn't know the order of the stock and never undoes a move played every deal: it won 47.9% and, on average, got 76 of the 104 cards to the foundations.

In short, Diplomat is close to a coin toss even for a player with no look-ahead into the stock — and a thoughtful person can do better. No published study has measured Diplomat, so these are, as far as we know, the first numbers of their kind.

A Diplomat deal, by the numbers

How Diplomat is played on klondike.nz

Two packs on the table

Two packs (104 cards). Eight columns of four cards, all face up. Eight foundations. The remaining 72 cards form the stock.

Winning

Build all eight foundations from Ace to King, each in one suit.

Moves

• Build down in the columns regardless of suit: any 6 on any 7.
• Move one card at a time. There are no group moves.
• Any card can go into an empty column.
• Turn the stock one card at a time onto the waste. There is no redeal: one pass through the stock is all you get.

Reading a Diplomat deal

Aces are there about half the time

With 49.2% of deals offering an Ace on move one, a playable Ace is nice but ordinary. More useful is noticing which Aces and 2s are at the back of their columns, since those need three cards moved first.

Short columns are your space

Every column starts with four cards. Because any card can fill an empty column, clearing one gives you a genuinely flexible parking spot. Look for the column whose four cards can go elsewhere soonest.

Remember the stock only runs once

The single pass is the key constraint. Before turning the next stock card, make every useful move on the table, so each new card meets the best possible layout.

Mind the one-card rule

Without group moves, a long descending stack is expensive to shift. Build long runs only where you won't need to move them again.

Count what's home

Our player ended with about 76 of 104 cards on the foundations on average. If you're past 76 with stock left, you're doing better than it did.

What the numbers mean for you

A 47.9% win rate for a player that can't peek at the stock and never undoes puts Diplomat among the friendlier two-pack games. Wins took about 351 moves including stock turns, so it's a longer game than Klondike, but a forgiving one. Use Undo when a stock card reveals your plan was wrong.

A first-minute checklist for Diplomat

All 32 table cards in Diplomat are face up, so you can plan properly before the first stock card turns over. This is the routine we'd suggest.

1. Send out any free Aces. In about half of deals (49.2% in our study) there is at least one.
2. Find the Aces and 2s at the back of their columns. Each needs three cards moved off it, one at a time. Plan where those three will go.
3. Pick a column to empty. Four cards is not many, and any card can fill the space afterwards, so an empty column is flexible.
4. Build down with care. Suits don't matter for building, but long stacks are slow to move one card at a time. Build where the stack can stay.
5. Exhaust the table before each stock card. With one pass only, every stock card should meet the best layout you can make.
6. Keep count. Our player averaged 76 of 104 cards home. Measure your own games against that.

Diplomat is forgiving: nearly half of our player's games were won without any Undo or knowledge of the stock. With both, you can expect to do better.

Three ways players misread a Diplomat deal

• "Suits don't matter." They don't for building on the table, but every foundation is built in one suit. Mixing suits freely on the table is fine; just keep track of which cards the foundations need next.
• "I'll get another look at the stock." Not on this site: there is one pass only. A stock card you can't use now is gone for good.
• "Long runs are progress." With one-card moves only, a long run can be a wall. Short, well-placed runs are easier to take apart when you need to.

Diplomat is forgiving, but it rewards playing the table fully before each stock card.

Play Diplomat on klondike.nz

Free, in any modern browser on computer, tablet or phone, with no download, no sign-up and no email. Large, clear cards with zoom; Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play; drag-and-drop or tap; wins, time and moves for the current game; sound off, fullscreen, and a choice of table colours. A relaxed pick for a rainy Whanganui afternoon.

Where these numbers come from

The klondike.nz team ran this study in September 2026.

1. Rules from our code. Two packs, eight columns of four face up, one pass through a 72-card stock, build down regardless of suit, one card at a time, any card into an empty column.
2. A program version. Rebuilt to those rules.
3. Numbered deals. Seeds 1 to 2,000.
4. Looking at each deal. We checked for an Ace playable from the table.
5. The player. Looks 300 positions ahead over the table and waste, doesn't know what's coming from the stock, and never undoes.
6. Comparison. We know of no published Diplomat figure to compare against, so this result can't be cross-checked yet.
7. Error bars. 45.7–50.0% is the 95% range around 47.9%.
8. Limits. This is a floor: a player who plans carefully and uses Undo should win more often.

Under the bonnet

The simulation is Python 3.11, standard library only, in a module named diplomat.py. A shared runner distributes deals over 19 worker processes with multiprocessing; the 2,000-game run took about 14 minutes. The player is a 300-position look-ahead that rewards cards on foundations, empty columns and tidy links, penalises cards resting on lower cards, and turns the next stock card only when nothing on the table improves its score. Percentages are given with Wilson score 95% intervals. We had help from an AI assistant, Claude by Anthropic, in writing and reviewing the code and drafting this page. The AI supplied no figures — every number comes from running the code.

Questions players ask

How often can Diplomat be won?

We haven't measured the ceiling. Our no-peek, no-Undo player won 47.9%, which is a floor.

Is there a second pass through the stock?

No. Diplomat on this site allows one pass.

Can I move several cards at once?

No, one card at a time.

What does an empty column accept?

Any card.

What else uses two packs?

The Spider games do. For a single-pack classic, try Klondike.

By Admin, klondike.nz. Study date: 18 September 2026.