Solitaire Draw 1 vs Draw 3

How the two rules work

Klondike deals 28 cards into seven columns and keeps the other 24 as a face-down stock. When you have no useful move on the table, you turn cards from the stock onto the waste, and the top card of the waste is playable. When the stock is empty you turn the waste over to start a new pass.

• Draw one (turn one): each tap turns a single card. Every card in the stock gets its moment on top of the waste during a pass, so nothing is out of reach; the only question is whether it fits when it appears.
• Draw three (turn three): each tap turns three cards together, fanned so you can see them, but only the top one may be played. Play it and the card beneath becomes playable; do not, and the next tap covers all three with the next group.

CardCouch plays draw one by default; a draw-three option is available from the game's settings. Passes are unlimited in both, and the waste is turned back in the same order, so a pass with no plays deals identically to the previous one.

Why draw three is so much harder

Two things change. First, on any single pass you can only reach every third card: the third, sixth, ninth and so on. Eight of the 24 stock cards are available; the other sixteen are visible in the fans but locked underneath. If the 7♥ you need is the middle card of its fan, it stays out of reach unless you can play the card on top of it first.

Second, every card you play from the waste changes how the next pass falls. The cards come back in the same order minus the one you played, so everything that came after it moves up one place and a different set lands on top of the fans. That is the puzzle of draw three: which one play, made now, brings the cards you need to the top later? A card that fits is not always a card you should play.

In draw one neither problem exists. Every card is reachable every pass, and playing one never hides another. Draw one games are lost when the tableau itself is blocked, such as a King buried under a column with nowhere to go, not by the stock.

Win rates: what to expect

Start with the ceiling. Computer analyses that peek at every hidden card find that about four in five draw-three deals can be solved with unlimited passes, and roughly nine in ten at draw one. The rest are unwinnable no matter what: the cards needed to open a column are stacked in the wrong order from the start.

Real players do worse, because the hidden cards stay hidden. With unlimited passes a good player wins most draw-one deals but only roughly a third of draw-three deals, and players who simply play whatever fits win a good deal fewer. With passes limited to three, the traditional draw-three rule, the rate drops further. Nobody has an exact figure for human play, so treat any precise percentage with suspicion.

None of this is a target to beat every session. Klondike deals vary hugely; a run of five losses in draw three says little about your play. Over many games the averages show.

Tips for playing draw three

• Make a first pass without playing anything from the waste. Turn through all eight groups and read the whole stock. You now know where every card sits and which are on top of their group. Only then decide.
• Count the cycle. The stock comes round in the same order every pass, minus what you played, and a card reaches the top of a fan when its place in that order is a multiple of three. Each card you play from earlier in the stock moves everything after it up one place. So the bottom card of a fan (the one turned first) needs one earlier play to come to the top next pass, the middle card needs two, and a third play buries it again. Count before you commit.
• Prefer tableau moves that do not touch the waste while the stock is in a good alignment. Playing from column to column changes nothing about the groups.
• Play from the waste when it gains a card, not a cosmetic move. Uncovering a face-down tableau card or opening a column is worth changing the alignment for. Moving a red 8 onto a black 9 for its own sake usually is not.
• Empty columns are still king. The stock puzzle matters less once you can move sequences freely. Free your columns first, then untangle the waste.
• Use Undo to look ahead. On CardCouch a play can be taken back all the way to the deal. Trying a waste play, seeing how the next pass falls, and undoing if it does not help is a legitimate way to learn the pattern.

The Solitaire strategy guide covers the tableau side: which columns to dig first, when to play a King into a space, and when to hold a card back.

Which should you play?

Draw one if you want a relaxing game that rewards tidy play and finishes more often than not. It is the right place to learn Klondike, and it is what CardCouch deals by default.

Draw three if you want a puzzle. A win means something, the stock becomes part of the plan rather than a lucky dip, and a good player is measurably better than a lazy one. Turn it on from the game's settings when draw one starts to feel automatic.

Either way you are playing the same 52 cards, the same seven columns and the same foundations. The rule only changes how much of the stock you can see at once.

Scoring variants (not used here)

Vegas Solitaire is Klondike with money attached: you pay 52 for the deal and earn 5 for each card placed on a foundation, so eleven cards up puts you ahead and a full win pays 260 for a net 208. Vegas allows one pass at draw one or three passes at draw three, and that limit is what makes the stakes meaningful. Windows-style "standard" scoring awards points for each card sent to a foundation or turned face up and deducts for recycling the stock and for elapsed time.

CardCouch uses neither. Games are scored by moves and time, with unlimited passes and unlimited undo, and your best time and fewest moves are saved as personal records. The aim is simply to win, and then to win in fewer moves.