Klondike Turn 3: a practical playbook for the three-card stock
Turn 3 changes one rule of Klondike and, with it, the whole feel of the game. Each click on the stock turns over three cards, and only the top one of the three is available. The tableau plays exactly as in ordinary Klondike; what you have to learn is how to handle the stock.
This page is a hands-on playbook: how the three-card turn really works, which stock cards you can reach and how to change that, when to take a card from the waste and when to leave it, and a worked example. For the full statistics on Turn 3 deals, see our Solitaire Turn 3 page; the game here is the same one.
What happens when you click the stock
After the deal there are 24 cards in the stock. When you click it, three cards are turned onto the waste as a small fan. Only the uppermost card of the three can be played. If you play it, the card under it becomes available; if you play that one too, the third becomes available.
When the stock runs out, clicking it turns the whole waste back over to form a new stock, in the same order. On this site you can do that as many times as you like. The cards themselves never change order unless you play some of them.
Which stock cards you can actually reach
This is the heart of Turn 3. Number the stock cards 1 to 24 from the top. If you go through without playing anything, the cards you get to see on top are the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 21st and 24th: eight cards out of 24. The other sixteen are buried in the fans and cannot be played on that pass.
If nothing changes, the next pass shows you exactly the same eight cards again. The stock is locked into the same rhythm, and a game can stall even though the card you need is sitting in the stock.
The key is that every card you play from the waste shifts the rhythm. Take one card out and every card below it moves one place closer to the top, so the groups of three are formed differently on the next pass. Cards that were hidden in the middle of a fan become available.
| What you do on a pass | What happens on the next pass |
|---|---|
| Play nothing from the waste | Exactly the same eight cards come up again |
| Play one card from the waste | Every card after it shifts one place; different cards come up |
| Play several cards from different places | The groups change more, and more of the stock becomes reachable |
Working the stock, pass by pass
Go through the stock once before committing
On the first pass, try to look rather than act. Note which of the eight available cards would be useful and where they fall. There is no penalty for passes here, so a slow, observant first pass costs nothing.
Play from the waste on purpose
Because every play shifts the rhythm, the choice of which waste card to take is also a choice of what the next pass will show you. If you are stuck, taking a waste card you could just as well leave can be exactly what unlocks the stock.
Take cards early in the stock rather than late
A card played from near the top of the stock shifts everything after it; a card played from near the end shifts almost nothing. When you have the choice, the earlier play changes more.
Keep count of your passes
There is no limit here, but if a pass shows you exactly the same cards as the last one and you have played nothing, the stock is locked. Stop turning and look for a tableau move instead, or use Undo to find a different play earlier in the pass.
When to play from the waste, and when to hold
- Play it if it goes to a foundation and you will not need it to hold a lower card, or if it lets you turn over a hidden card in the tableau.
- Play it if it frees the card beneath it in the fan and you want that one too.
- Hold it if the only place it can go blocks a column you are trying to clear, or covers a card you will need soon.
- Consider playing it anyway if the stock has stopped giving you anything new: changing the rhythm may matter more than the card itself.
One pass, played out
Suppose your first pass turns up, as the available top cards, a black 9, a red 2, a black Queen and five cards you cannot use. The red 2 is useful only if its Ace is already home; say it is not. The black 9 can go on a red 10 in the tableau, and that would turn over a hidden card.
- Play the black 9 from the waste to the red 10. A hidden card turns over: say a red Ace. Send it to its foundation.
- Carry on through the stock. The red 2 of that suit comes up later in the same pass; play it to the foundation.
- Two cards have now left the stock, so on the next pass the groups of three are different. Cards that were buried in the middle of the fans, including perhaps the red 3 you need next, now have a chance to come up.
- If the next pass shows nothing useful, look at what playing the black Queen onto a red King would open. It is another card out of the stock, and another shift in the rhythm.
The example shows the general pattern: in Turn 3 the best move is often the one that both helps the tableau and changes what the stock will show you next.
Turn 3 in three numbers
Our study found that a computer player that only sees face-up cards and never undoes a move won 10.6% of Turn 3 deals, against 42.3% at Turn 1. In the games it won at Turn 3 it went through the stock 3.8 times on average, against 2.3 at Turn 1. And even a solver that could see every card proved 9.5% of Turn 3 deals impossible. The full results and ranges are on our Solitaire Turn 3 page.
Playing Turn 3 on klondike.nz
The game is free, with nothing to download, install or sign up for, and it works in any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone. Unlimited Undo is especially useful in Turn 3: you can go back and try taking a different card from the waste to see how the next pass changes. There is also Hint, Restart, Auto Play, drag and drop or tap to move, a zoom control for bigger cards, fullscreen mode and a choice of table colours. The game tracks wins, time and moves.
How the figures were produced
- Rules from our code. Same Klondike rules as Turn 1, but the stock turns three cards and only the top one can be played; unlimited passes.
- A program copy. We rebuilt the game in software and checked the moves against the rules.
- Numbered deals. 10,000 seeded deals for the computer player and 1,000 for the solver, so the test can be repeated exactly.
- Floor and ceiling. The 10.6% is a floor: the player never looks ahead or undoes a move. The 9.5% comes from a solver that sees every card, which is more than any person can.
Under the bonnet
The code is Python 3.11 with only the standard library, in the module klondike.py. The solver models which stock cards can be reached under the three-card rule, searches depth-first with a limit of 150,000 positions per deal, and remembers positions it has already seen. Deals are spread over processor cores with multiprocessing, and ranges are Wilson score 95% intervals. Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, helped us write and review the code and draft this page, but it did not produce any figures: those come from running the code, checked against published research.
Questions players ask
What about the two cards under the top one?
That is the Turn 3 rule. The other two cards become available only as the cards above them are played.
Why does the stock keep showing me the same cards?
Because you have not played anything from it. Play a card from the waste and the groups of three will be formed differently on the next pass.
Will the game stop me turning the stock over again?
No, not on this site. You can go through as many times as you like.
How does this page relate to Solitaire Turn 3?
Yes. This page is the practical guide; the Solitaire Turn 3 page has our study's results. For the basics of Klondike itself, see our complete Klondike guide.
Should I switch to Turn 1 while I learn?
If Turn 3 feels frustrating, yes: the tableau skills are identical, and Turn 1 Klondike lets you practise them without the stock getting in the way.
By Admin, klondike.nz. Study date: 18 September 2026.