Mini Solitaire - Short Deck Klondike, Play Free

Why the Queens and Kings Are Missing

Take a standard deck and remove all four Queens and all four Kings. Eleven ranks are left in each suit, forty-four cards in total, and the Jack becomes the highest card in the game.

That one change reaches further than it sounds. A foundation is finished at the Jack, so it needs eleven cards instead of thirteen. An empty column takes a Jack, because there is no King to put there. And the stock is short enough that you will see every card in it several times over.

Is Mini Solitaire Easier?

Shorter, yes. Easier, not exactly - it is a tighter game rather than a gentler one.

Fewer cards on the table means fewer legal moves at any given moment, so the order you make them in matters more than it does with a full deck. There is no second copy of anything to bail you out, and only fifteen cards start face down, which means the information you are missing is small but decisive.

What it does remove is the long grind. A full Klondike can take twenty minutes to lose. This one tells you where you stand in about five.

How to Play Mini Solitaire

Move all 44 cards onto the four foundations, each sorted by suit from Ace to Jack.

Six columns are dealt in a staircase, one to six cards, and a seventh column starts empty. Only the top card of each column is face up.
Build down the table in alternating colours - a red 9 takes a black 8, and so on down to the Ace.
An empty column takes a Jack, or a sequence that starts with one.
Foundations start with Aces and finish at the Jack, eleven cards each.
Turn the stock one card at a time and go through it as often as you need.
The game is won when all four foundations run from Ace to Jack.

Three Things Worth Knowing

Jacks are the new Kings. There are four of them, and an empty column is worth nothing until one turns up.
The sixth column hides five cards. Everything interesting is usually under them.
Because the stock is twenty-three cards deep against a small table, you can afford to pass through it and think again. Use that instead of forcing a move you are unsure about.