Russian Solitaire

Russian Solitaire is Yukon with the difficulty dial turned past its limit. The premise is familiar — seven tableau columns, all cards face-up, no stock, four foundations to fill from Ace to King. But one rule change transforms the game into one of the hardest single-deck solitaire variants around. Where Yukon builds in alternating colors, Russian Solitaire builds by suit only. A 7 of Hearts can go on an 8 of Hearts. Nothing else.

This seemingly small change cascades. In Yukon, any red card of the right rank can receive a black card — multiple destinations exist. In Russian Solitaire, each card has at most one valid destination: the same-suit card one rank higher. If that card is buried or already on a foundation, the card has nowhere to go. Available moves shrink dramatically.

The movement rule from Yukon remains generous. Any face-up card or group of face-up cards sitting on a face-up card may move together as a unit, even if they are not in sequential order. You can grab a pile of mixed-suit cards and relocate the whole stack — but the card you place them onto must still be the correct suit, one rank higher. The group may look disorganized, and it will stay disorganized at its destination. The same-suit rule applies only to the card you are placing on, not to the group you bring with it.

Expert players win approximately 12 to 15 percent of the time. Many deals are unwinnable regardless of play quality. Even winnable deals require precise sequencing with almost no margin for error. Russian Solitaire is for players who find Yukon too easy and are prepared to lose most games.

1. Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Deal seven tableau columns in the Yukon layout:

• Column one: one card face-up.
• Columns two through seven: each receives an increasing number of face-down base cards (one through six respectively), topped by five face-up cards. All 52 cards go into the tableau. There is no stock pile and no waste pile.

1. Place four empty foundation piles above the tableau. Foundations build upward by suit from Ace to King.

On each turn you may:

• Move a face-up card. Move any face-up card from one column to another, provided the card is exactly one rank lower and the same suit as the top face-up card of the destination. The 6 of Diamonds may only go on the 7 of Diamonds. No cross-suit placement is allowed, regardless of color.
• Move a group. Move any group of face-up cards sitting on top of a face-up card as a unit. The bottom card of the group must satisfy the same-suit, one-rank-lower rule with the destination card. Cards within the group do not need to be in sequential or same-suit order.
• 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 group whose bottom card is a King.
• Play to a foundation. Move any Ace to an empty foundation at any time. Add subsequent cards of the correct suit and ascending rank as they become available.

The game is won when all 52 cards are on the four foundation piles.

• Think in suit channels from move one. Before touching anything, scan the tableau and find where each suit's sequence is spread across columns. Cards out of suit-sequence with their neighbors are deadweight until relocated — and relocating them requires their destination card to be accessible. Trace these dependency chains before committing to a move.
• Kings are your most important resource. Empty columns are rarer and more valuable here than in Yukon, because fewer cards have valid destinations at any given time. Create an empty column only with a King ready to fill it and a clear plan for what that King enables.
• Check group moves carefully. Before moving a group, confirm the bottom card satisfies the destination requirement and that the move advances suit consolidation. Moving a pile of mixed suits into a column creates a tangle that is much harder to unwind when building options are already tight.
• Recognize unwinnable positions early. If two or three suit sequences are fully blocked with no valid relocation targets, the game cannot be won. Starting fresh is a better use of time than playing it out.

Russian Solitaire is closely related to Yukon. Both games likely came from the same tradition of no-stock, all-cards-face-up patience variants that gained popularity in the mid-20th century. The "Russian" label appears in card game literature as a regional variant name, though the true geographic origin is unclear — naming conventions in patience history are often more evocative than accurate.

The game appears in early digital solitaire collections as one of several Yukon variants distinguished by their building rules. Alongside Yukon and Scorpion, Russian Solitaire formed part of a family of same-or-restricted-suit games that attracted players seeking harder alternatives to Klondike's alternating-color sequences.

Its 12 to 15 percent win rate is frequently cited in discussions of solitaire difficulty. It often appears near the top of "hardest single-deck solitaire" lists alongside Scorpion and Canfield. For players who treat solitaire as a combinatorial challenge, Russian Solitaire is a genuinely rigorous test.