Klondike, the game of solitaire with which most people are familiar, is played with a single standard card deck (without the Jokers). Cards are shuffled and dealt into seven columns. The first column is dealt one card. The second is dealt two cards. The process continues to the seventh pile, which is dealt seven cards. Finally, the top card in each column is turned over. These seven columns are called the tableau.

The remaining deck, placed in the left or right corner of the screen, is called the stock. Cards are drawn one at a time (easy gameplay) or three at a time (hard gameplay). Once drawn, cards are flipped over and placed in the waste pile. When you can no longer draw cards from the stock pile, tap its outline to replenish it with cards.

The four empty spaces above the tableau are called foundations. The object of the game is to play all the cards on the foundations, by suit and in order from Ace to King.

Until you have uncovered all the cards needed to build the foundations, you will need to move cards between the tableau (seven columns). You cannot move cards between just any tableau pile, however. Cards in the tableau must be arranged in descending order from King to Ace, and alternate between red and black.

In Vegas-style Klondike, you invest $52, or $1 per card, to play the game. For each card played on a foundation, you win back $5. Only eleven cards ($55) need to be played on the foundations to start making a profit.

In Draw One mode, all of the cards are available, but you may only pass through the deck once. When playing Draw Three mode (more challenging), you may only pass through the deck three times.

Klondike solitaire is difficult because there are so many hidden cards, both beneath the cards in the tableau, and between the cards you can access from the stock. Always prioritize a move that uncovers cards over a move that does not.

Do not play cards on the Aces until you are sure you will not need them in the tableau. Always play twos on Aces immediately, because you will not need them to play any other cards. But wait to play both red threes, for example, until you have played both black Aces to the foundations. That way, you will have a place to put the black twos when you uncover them, and the red threes will no longer be needed.

Do not let any one tableau pile get too far ahead of the others if you can help it. Having one particularly large pile makes it difficult to make other moves.

Standard Scoring

Vegas Scoring

You are playing Vegas mode, which limits the number of times you may pass through the deck. In Draw One mode, all of the cards are available, but you may only pass through the deck once. When playing Draw Three mode (more challenging), you may only pass through the deck three times.

Some versions of Real Solitaire offer themes to celebrate holidays and other seasonal events. The game will automatically alert you several weeks before the next major holiday or season, and give you the option to enable the theme. After the holiday has passed, the theme will remain enabled until it is changed.

To manually change the currently active theme, press the Settings button from within the game. A pop-up list of settings will appear. Scroll down and select Wallpaper. Next, scroll down and select a holiday or event (e.g., Halloween). After making a selection, you will be given the option to enable the matching card style, if desired.

Please note that only a few holidays have themes at this time, but more are in development. If you'd like to request a theme, please contact us.

Real Solitaire supports Game Center, which provides online leaderboards and achievements. To enable it, press the Settings button from within Real Solitaire. A pop-up list of settings will appear. Scroll down and select Advanced Settings. Next, move the Game Center toggle switch to ON and tap Done (located in the top-right corner of the Advanced Settings screen).

If you are having problems with Game Center, please refer to Apple's Game Center support pages.

Real Solitaire is a challenging game because the outcome depends on both luck and skill. Even the most skilled players cannot consistently win games. To keep gameplay as realistic as possible, Real Solitaire relies on a mixture of shuffling algorithms that utilize random number generators built into the OS. Real Solitaire does not modify hands with the intent of making it more difficult to win.

With solitaire, or any system that generates random outcomes, it is common to have streaks of similar behavior even while the odds remain the same. Many people perceive streaks and patterns as indications that sequences are not random, even though random sequences inherently contain streaks and patterns. Our tendency to misinterpret randomness is exemplified by the Gambler's fallacy, which describes our intuition's habit of believing that the odds of something with a fixed probability are influenced by recent occurrences. For example, we think that the more times a coin lands on heads the more chances it has of landing on tails. In reality though, if a coin landed on heads one hundred times in a row it would still have a 50/50 chance of landing on heads the 101st time.

Sometimes, you may have more luck playing with real cards because shuffling by hand isn't necessarily random.

Since solitaire is a game involving both luck and skill, we do not plan on providing a way to modify the odds in Real Solitaire. EdgeRift believes that the enjoyment of playing solitaire comes from not knowing the hand you are dealt, just like the physical game itself.

The game solver feature calculates all possible moves as you play. When enabled (in Advanced Settings), it informs you when the game is no longer winnable.

After each move, the solver performs an extensive number of calculations based on the current game state, and generates a data tree that stores as many moves and outcomes as possible. This tree sometimes grows very large and strains the device memory system. We have had to set hard per-device limits to prevent the solver from using too much memory. Unfortunately, the limited amount of available device memory may force the solver to calculate, in some cases, only a few moves ahead of the current game state. The game solver performs best on the latest hardware due to the fact that newer devices offer more application memory.

Ads help support the continued development of Real Solitaire, and are designed to be non-obtrusive during gameplay. To remove them, you may upgrade to a paid version using the links below.

• Buy Real Solitaire for iPhone
• Buy Real Solitaire for iPad

We use a variety of filters to ensure that only family-friendly ads are displayed. However, if you find a particular ad offensive, please contact us with more information and we will permanently block the ad. Our top priority is to keep Real Solitaire fun and enjoyable for everyone.