The table
- Tableau
- The main playing area: the seven columns dealt at the start of Klondike, where all the mid-game building happens. Columns run one to seven cards deep, and only each column’s top card starts face up.
- Foundation
- One of the four piles above the tableau, one per suit, built upward from ace to king. Getting all 52 cards onto the foundations is what winning means.
- Stock
- The face-down packet left over after the deal — 24 cards in Klondike — that you turn through during play.
- Waste
- The face-up pile next to the stock where turned cards land. Only its top card is in play; the rest wait underneath in order.
- Column
- A single tableau stack. “Pile” is the looser word for any stack on the table, including the stock, waste, and foundations.
- Free cell
- In FreeCell, one of four open slots that hold any single card temporarily — the safety valves that give the game its name.
Dealing and moving
- Deal
- Both the act of laying out a fresh game and the resulting arrangement itself. Two identical deals play out identically — the difference is the choices you make.
- Draw 1
- The stock mode that turns one card per flip, so every stock card becomes reachable on each pass. The version classic desktop solitaire made standard.
- Draw 3 (Turn 3)
- The stock mode that turns three cards at once with only the top one playable. Same deals, meaningfully lower win rate.
- Flip
- Turning a face-down tableau card face up once nothing covers it. Every flip is new information, which is why moves that cause flips are usually the strongest available.
- Build
- Placing cards in legal order: downward in alternating colors on the tableau, upward by suit on the foundations.
- Run
- A built stretch of tableau cards — black 9, red 8, black 7 — that moves as a single unit in Klondike.
- Alternating colors
- The tableau’s placement rule: a card goes only on a card one rank higher and of the opposite color. A black 6 fits on a red 7; a red 6 does not.
- Empty column
- A tableau column with nothing left in it. Klondike allows only a King — alone or leading its run — to move in.
- Recycle (pass)
- Turning the exhausted waste back into a fresh stock. Each trip through the stock is one pass; casual play allows unlimited passes, while scored and Vegas variants penalize or cap them.
- Safe move
- A move that can never cost you later. Aces and twos to the foundations are the textbook examples; most other “obvious” moves deserve a second look.
- Auto-complete
- The game finishing a won position for you. StillDeck’s version is deliberately conservative — it offers to take over only when every remaining move is a guaranteed foundation play.
Outcomes and scoring
- Winnable (solvable)
- A deal that perfect play could finish. The large majority of Klondike deals are winnable in principle; real win rates sit far lower because face-down cards force guesses.
- Deadlock
- A position with no move that makes progress — nothing to build, nothing useful left in the stock. StillDeck detects deadlocks and says so, instead of letting you cycle the stock forever.
- Standard scoring
- The familiar point system: points for foundation plays and flips, small deductions for take-backs and extra passes through the stock.
- Vegas scoring
- The casino-style variant: the deck costs money up front and each card played to a foundation earns a fixed amount back, with strict limits on passes through the stock.
- Undo
- Taking back your latest move — up to 100 per game on StillDeck. The board state rewinds exactly; the historical move count stays honest.
The family
- Klondike
- The seven-column game most of the world simply calls solitaire, named after the 1890s Yukon gold-rush region where it reputedly spread.
- Patience
- The British and European family name for single-player card games. Same games, different label.
- Solitaire
- In American usage, both the whole family of one-player card games and the everyday name for Klondike itself.
- FreeCell
- The open-information relative: every card starts face up and nearly every deal is winnable, so it plays as pure planning rather than discovery.