Easthaven Solitaire

Easthaven is a genuine hybrid game — it borrows its dealing mechanism from Spider and its building rules from Klondike. The result feels familiar from both directions but plays out differently from either.

The Spider side shows immediately. Seven columns of three cards fan across the tableau, with only the top card of each face-up. The remaining 31 cards sit in the stock. When you run out of moves, the stock deals one card face-up to each column at once — exactly as Spider does. There is no waste pile and no drawing individual cards. You play until stuck, deal a full round, then play again.

The Klondike influence shapes everything else. Foundations build upward by suit from Ace to King. Tableau columns build downward in alternating colors — black on red, red on black. Valid sequences can move as a unit, which is your main tool for uncovering buried cards.

The hybrid design creates tight constraints in two places at once. The Spider-style dealing lands cards on every column regardless of what you need. The alternating-color building rule means only some of those arriving cards fit somewhere useful right away.

Empty columns follow the Klondike rule: only a King or a King-topped sequence may fill one. Empty columns are the rarest, most valuable resource in Easthaven. Resist the urge to fill one the moment you clear it.

Win rates are moderate for a hybrid game. The dealing structure adds genuine luck, but alternating-color building gives skilled play real leverage over bad deals.

1. Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Deal seven tableau columns of three cards each. The bottom two cards in each column are face-down; the top card is face-up. This uses 21 cards, leaving 31 in the stock.
2. Place four empty foundation piles above or beside the tableau.

On each turn you may:

• Move tableau cards. Place a face-up card or a valid sequence onto another column. The bottom card of the moved sequence must be one rank lower and the opposite color from the card it lands on. A red 6 may go on a black 7. A sequence like black 5 — red 4 — black 3 moves as a unit if the destination card is a red 6 or higher. Only properly ordered alternating-color sequences move as a group.
• Flip a face-down card. When a face-down card is exposed as the top of a column, flip it face-up.
• Fill an empty column. Empty columns may only be filled by a King or a sequence whose bottom card is a King.
• Play to a foundation. Move Aces and subsequent cards of the right rank and suit to the foundations at any time. Foundations build upward by suit from Ace to King.

When no further moves are possible, deal one card face-up from the stock onto each of the seven columns simultaneously. You may not deal if any column is empty — all columns must contain at least one card first. There is no redeal.

The game is won when all 52 cards are on the four foundation piles, each complete from Ace to King by suit.

Easthaven appears in card game literature as a recognized hybrid patience game. It draws on the Spider-style dealing mechanism that became popular through digital solitaire collections in the 1990s and early 2000s. The name suggests an eastern counterpart to some imagined "Westhaven" — a naming convention without a clearly documented origin, though the game itself is well-established in solitaire software libraries.

The Spider-Klondike hybrid concept proved durable because it solved a real design problem. Spider's ten-column, two-deck layout is demanding enough to put off casual players. Klondike's single-deck format can feel too brief for experienced ones. Easthaven sits in the middle — single deck, familiar Klondike building rules, and Spider's more dramatic dealing mechanism.

The game appears in most comprehensive solitaire software packages. It has attracted a steady audience among intermediate players who find Klondike too casual but are not ready for the full complexity of multi-deck games.

• Think before clearing a column. The no-deal-with-empty-columns rule is Easthaven's central constraint. Before clearing a column, decide whether you will fill it with a King or accept that you cannot deal until you do. Many games are lost by clearing a column at the wrong moment.
• Guard empty columns. Do not fill an empty column unless the King you place there enables a clear sequence of productive moves you can trace in advance.
• Flip face-down cards before dealing. When a deal round is coming, identify which columns have buried face-down cards near the surface. A freshly uncovered card can vanish under a dealt card. Flip as many face-down cards as possible before dealing so new cards land on accessible positions.
• Don't rush foundations early. Mid-rank cards sent to foundations too soon leave gaps in sequences that stall future building. Keep foundations roughly balanced across suits and prioritize uncovering buried cards first.