Yukon Solitaire: 52 cards, no stock, and nowhere to hide a mistake
Most of the games on freecell-two-decks.com are measured against a simple yardstick: what changes when the deck is doubled? Yukon sits firmly on the one-deck side of that line. All 52 cards go straight onto the table in seven columns, there is no stock to fall back on, and every card exists exactly once: one 8 of clubs, one foundation it can finish on. You can lift any face-up card together with whatever is stacked on it, in order or not.
With a single deck, the question becomes how much a short plan can squeeze out of a closed table. A program that looks up to 300 positions ahead on each turn, sees only the face-up cards and never undoes won 4.5% of 10,000 deals (95% range 4.1%–4.9%). A depth-first search that knows the face-down cards proved 67.0% of 500 deals winnable (95% range 62.8%–71.0%). We never built a two-deck Yukon, so there is no doubled-deck figure for this game; the comparison with two-deck games further down uses other games on the site.
At a glance: a one-deck game with every card committed
| Measure (one 52-card deck) | Result | 95% range | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| Look-ahead program, visible cards only, no Undo: won | 4.5% | 4.1–4.9% | 10,000 deals |
| Search that knows hidden cards: proven winnable | 67.0% | 62.8–71.0% | 500 deals |
| Same search: budget ran out | 29.6% | 25.8–33.7% | 500 deals |
| Same search: proven impossible | 3.4% | 2.1–5.4% | 500 deals |
| Aces starting face down (of 4) | 1.63 | 1.61–1.64 | 10,000 deals |
| Cards home when the program stopped | 7.4 of 52 | 7.2–7.6 | 10,000 deals |
The share of winnable deals lies between 67.0% and 96.6%, for a player who could see through card backs. The 4.5% is the floor of a weak program, not a forecast for you. Yukon is not in the Blake and Gent (2026) study, so no published figure sits beside ours.
One deck against two: what Yukon lacks
In the two-deck games here, a stuck card usually has a second copy somewhere that can do its job. Our rule-of-thumb Klondike program won 42.3% of one-deck deals (41.3–43.3%, 10,000 deals) but 81.5% of two-deck Solitaire Double deals (80.7–82.2%, 10,000 deals). Yukon has no such spare. Each red 7 has exactly two black 8s to land on, and if both are buried, that 7 waits. That scarcity is a big part of why a short look-ahead manages so little here.
Yukon rules on this site
- Deck: one standard 52-card deck.
- Tableau: seven columns: one card in the first, then six to eleven cards, with the last five of each face up.
- Stock: none. Every card is dealt at the start.
- Foundations: four, one per suit, Ace to King.
- Building: one rank lower in the opposite color.
- Moving: any face-up card may be moved with everything on top of it, ordered or not. Only the card you lift must fit.
- Empty columns: Kings only, carrying whatever sits on them.
Playing a closed, single-deck table
Every card has one job
With no duplicate cards, there is no "the other one will turn up". Before burying a card under a group move, ask whether it is the only card that can free something you need.
Turn cards over before you tidy
The program usually finished with about 7 cards home and several still hidden. Group moves that expose a face-down card beat moves that only neaten the face-up ones.
Hidden Aces are not the verdict
About 1.6 of the four Aces start face down. The program won 4.4% (3.9–5.0%, 5,413 deals) with two or more hidden and 4.5% (3.9–5.1%, 4,587 deals) with one or none. The order of your moves counts for far more than where the Aces fell.
Pick the King before opening a gap
A gap takes only a King, and the King brings its whole pile. Empty a column only when you know which King goes there and what it uncovers.
Let Undo stretch your plan
The program's wins averaged about 97 moves. You can test a big group move, see what it turns up, and step back, which the program never did.
Playing on freecell-two-decks.com
Yukon is free in any current browser on a computer, tablet or phone, with nothing to install and no account. Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play are built in, along with zoom, fullscreen, drag or tap to move, a counter for wins, time and moves, and settings for sound and table color.
How the figures were made
The freecell-two-decks.com team ran these simulations in September 2026 on the rules in this site's own game code.
- Rules from the code: the seven-column deal with five cards up, no stock, opposite-color building, any face-up card moving with its pile, Kings only in gaps.
- A Python program (3.11, standard library only), shared with Alaska.
- Numbered deals: seeds 1 to 10,000 for the program, 1 to 500 for the search.
- Two players. The look-ahead program searches 300 positions per turn on visible cards and never undoes. The search is depth-first, knows every card and had up to 50,000 positions per deal.
- No two-deck Yukon was run, and Blake and Gent (2026) do not cover Yukon.
- 95% ranges: Wilson score intervals for percentages, normal intervals for averages.
Claude, an AI assistant by Anthropic, helped write and review the code and draft this page. Every figure comes from running the code, and the team checked them.
Yukon questions
Is there a two-deck Yukon here?
No. Yukon is played with one deck on this site, and we measured only that.
How does it compare with Klondike?
For simple play, much harder: 4.5% for the Yukon program against 42.3% for our one-deck Klondike program.
Can every deal be won?
No. 3.4% were proven impossible even with every card known.
What next?
Alaska is Yukon built in suit. For the two-deck experience, start with FreeCell Two Decks, or see the games page.
By Admin, freecell-two-decks.com (Forty Media). Research run September 2026.