Klondike Turn 3: does a good-looking deal help when you draw three?
Turn 3 is the tougher way to play Klondike. The deal on the table is identical to Turn 1 — seven columns, 21 hidden cards, 24 in the stock — but you turn the stock three cards at a time and can only play the top one of each group. We dealt the same 10,000 opening layouts we used for our Turn 1 page and played them again under the three-card rule, to see how much the opening deal matters when the stock is harder to reach.
The result is striking. Our computer player, which only sees face-up cards and never undoes a move, won 10.6% of games at Turn 3. With two or more Aces buried it won 10.1%; with none buried, 12.3%. The deal matters a little. The draw rule matters enormously: the same player on the same deals won 42.3% at Turn 1.
In other words, at Turn 3 it is not the layout that beats you. It is the stock.
Turn 3 deals, by the numbers
| What we looked at | Result | Deals | How we got it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deals with at least one Ace face down | 88.0% | 10,000 | Inspecting the deal (same deals as Turn 1) |
| Deals with no face-up move at the start | 8.6% | 10,000 | Inspecting the deal |
| Player's wins, 2 or more Aces hidden | 10.1% | 5,333 | Rule-based player, no peeking, no Undo |
| Player's wins, no Aces hidden | 12.3% | 1,196 | Same player |
| Player's wins, all deals | 10.6% (95% range 10.0–11.2%) | 10,000 | Same player |
| Passes through the stock in a won game | 3.8 on average | 1,063 wins | Same player |
| Deals proven winnable with every card visible | at least 66.2% | 1,000 | Solver, 150,000-position limit |
| Deals proven impossible with every card visible | 9.5% | 1,000 | Same solver |
The rules of Turn 3 on klondike.nz
Setting up
A single 52-card pack. Seven columns of 1 to 7 cards, the top card of each face up. The other 24 cards form the stock.
Winning
Build all four suits on the foundations from Ace to King.
Moving cards
- Columns build down in alternating colours; any face-up run can move as a block.
- Only a King, or a run starting with a King, can fill an empty column.
- The stock turns three cards at a time onto the waste, and only the top card of the waste is playable.
- When the stock is empty you can turn the waste over and start again, with no limit on the number of passes.
- One card may be taken back off a foundation if you need it.
Why the stock is the real opponent
At Turn 1 every stock card comes up in turn. At Turn 3 you only see every third card on a pass, and the cards in between are reachable only if you play from the waste and change the rhythm. That is why winning games at Turn 3 needed 3.8 passes through the stock on average, against 2.3 at Turn 1.
It is also why the ceiling drops. A solver that could see every card proved 9.5% of Turn 3 deals impossible, against 2.1% at Turn 1. Somewhere between 66.2% and 90.5% of Turn 3 deals can be won with perfect knowledge (the solver could not decide 24.3% within its limit). The best published estimate, from Blake and Gent (2026), is 81.945%, inside our range.
Reading a Turn 3 deal: what to check first
Look at the face-up cards as stock helpers
At Turn 3 the tableau's job is partly to absorb waste cards. A face-up red 8 on the table means any black 7 that surfaces in the waste has a home. Before you start, note which ranks and colours your face-up cards will accept.
Don't reshuffle for buried Aces
Our player won 10.1% with two or more Aces buried and 12.3% with none. That two-point gap is small next to the difference your stock play makes. A hidden Ace is not a reason to deal again.
Change the rhythm of the stock on purpose
Every card you play from the waste shifts which cards come up on the next pass. If a card you need keeps landing second or third in its group, play one waste card and watch the groups move. That single idea is the heart of Turn 3.
Count on several passes
With unlimited passes and nearly four passes per winning game in our test, there is no reason to rush. Work the table fully between passes.
Protect your empty columns
Kings-only empty columns matter even more at Turn 3, because a King sitting in the waste may not come up again for a while. Clear a column only when you can see which King will use it.
Playing Turn 3 here
This version is free to play in any modern browser, on desktop, tablet or phone, with nothing to install and no account or email needed. You get large, readable cards with zoom, Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play, plus drag-and-drop or tap-to-move. Wins, time and moves are tracked for your current game; sound can be turned off, and fullscreen and table colours are available. If a Sunday afternoon game at Turn 3 gets frustrating, the Turn 1 version is one click away.
Where these numbers come from
The klondike.nz team ran this study in September 2026 to compare Turn 3 with Turn 1 on exactly the same deals.
- Rules from our code. We took the rules from this page's own game: three-card draw, unlimited passes, Kings only in empty columns, alternating-colour building.
- A program version of the game. The stock was modelled exactly, so the program can only reach the cards a Turn 3 player could reach. Its moves were checked against the rules over 2,000 games.
- The same seeded deals as Turn 1. Seeds 1 to 10,000, so every comparison is like with like.
- Looking at each deal. We counted hidden Aces and opening moves.
- Two players. The rule-based player (sees face-up cards only, no Undo) played all 10,000 deals; the solver (sees every card) played 1,000 with a 150,000-position limit each.
- Comparison with published work. The published 81.945% lies inside our 66.2–90.5% range.
- Error bars. A "95% range" is the band the true figure very likely falls in, given how many deals we played: for our player, 10.0–11.2% around the 10.6% we measured.
- Limits. The player is a floor, the solver a ceiling; neither is a typical person.
Under the bonnet
The simulation is Python 3.11 with only the standard library. Klondike is in klondike.py; a shared runner spreads the deals over 19 worker processes with multiprocessing, so the 10,000-deal player run took about 8 seconds and the solver run about 17 minutes. The solver is a depth-first search over every legal move that works out exactly which stock cards are reachable under the three-card rule, and remembers positions already visited. Percent ranges are Wilson score 95% intervals. An AI assistant, Claude by Anthropic, helped write and review the code and draft this page; the AI produced none of the figures — they all come from running the code, and we checked them against the published study.
Questions players ask
Why does Turn 3 feel so much harder than Turn 1?
Because two stock cards in every three are out of reach on each pass. On identical deals, our player's win rate fell from 42.3% at Turn 1 to 10.6% at Turn 3.
Does a deal with visible Aces make Turn 3 easier?
Slightly. Our player won 12.3% with no Aces hidden against 10.1% with two or more hidden.
Are some Turn 3 deals impossible?
Yes. Even seeing every card, our solver proved 9.5% of deals could not be won.
How many times can I go through the stock?
Unlimited. Winning games in our test used 3.8 passes on average.
What should I play for a change?
Try Golf Solitaire for something quick, or see all the options on the games page.
By Admin, klondike.nz. Study date: 18 September 2026.