East Haven Solitaire: a stock that deals to the table, not to your hand
On solitaire-turn-3.com we sort every game by how its stock reaches you. In Solitaire Turn 3 the stock goes to a waste pile three cards at a time, and you pick from the top. East Haven has no waste pile at all. Each click on its 31-card stock drops one card on every one of the seven columns, and there is no redeal. You never choose which stock card to use; the stock chooses where it lands, and you deal with the result.
The layout is seven columns of three cards with the top card face up, built down in alternating colors. On this site whole runs move as a unit and any card may fill an empty column. How much room does that leave? A "thoughtful" solver, which knows the face-down cards and the stock order, won 97.6% of 3,000 deals (95% range 97.0–98.1%) and proved none impossible (0.0–0.13%). Because no player sees hidden cards, that is a ceiling, not your odds.
At a glance: East Haven on this site
| Measure (thoughtful solver unless noted) | Result | 95% range | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solved, runs move as a unit (this site) | 97.6% | 97.0–98.1% | 3,000 |
| Proven impossible (this site) | 0.0% | 0.0–0.13% | 3,000 |
| Undecided when the search stopped | 2.4% | 1.9–3.0% | 3,000 |
| No move among the 7 face-up cards at the start (deal inspection) | 8.2% | 7.2–9.2% | 3,000 |
| Aces starting face down, of 4 (deal inspection) | 1.06 | 1.03–1.09 | 3,000 |
| Single-card moves only (not this site): solved | 14.0% | 10.5–18.4% | 300 |
| Single-card moves only: proven impossible | 42.3% | 36.9–48.0% | 300 |
The single-card rows are there for contrast only. They show that on East Haven the movement rule matters more than anything else we measured: with runs moving as a unit nothing was proven lost, while with one card at a time at least 36.9% of deals were. We did not measure East Haven with a different stock rule, so we cannot say how much the stock itself costs or gives.
How East Haven's stock compares with a three-card draw
In Klondike Turn 3 the stock is a reserve you can revisit: our simple bot used 3.81 passes per won game on average, and the site allows as many as you want. East Haven gives you exactly one trip, and the trip is forced: the 31 cards arrive in groups of seven (the last deal gives three) whether you are ready or not. Each deal can bury the card you were about to play. So the question is not "which card can I reach?" but "is my table ready for seven new cards?" The published study of this game (Blake and Gent, 2026) gives 82.8% for a single-card version, which does not match either of our figures; we explain below why we quote only the site-rule figure.
East Haven rules on this site
- Deck: one standard 52-card deck.
- Tableau: seven columns of three cards, the top card face up.
- Stock: 31 cards. Each click deals one card onto every column, left to right; the last click deals three. No waste pile, no redeal.
- Dealing: allowed even when a column is empty.
- Building: down in alternating colors. Runs in sequence move as a unit.
- Spaces: any card or run may fill an empty column.
- Win: build all four suits from Ace to King on the foundations.
Playing a deal-to-the-table stock
Tidy up before you deal
Every stock click covers seven cards. Make every useful move first, especially moves that turn over a face-down card.
Keep runs long and clean
Because runs move together, a long ordered run is easy to shift after a deal lands on it. A jumble of odd cards is not.
An empty column is worth a lot
Any card can fill it, so it is the best place to rescue a card that a deal has buried.
Hunt the hidden Aces
About one Ace per deal starts face down. Work on the columns that hide cards before the stock covers them further.
No moves at the start is not the end
8.2% of deals open with nothing to play. Deal from the stock and look again.
Count the deals left
There are only five stock clicks in a game: four of seven cards and one of three. Knowing how many remain tells you how much more clutter is coming and how hard to push for an empty column now.
Playing on solitaire-turn-3.com
East Haven is free in any current browser on computer, tablet or phone, with no account and nothing to install. Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play are included, plus zoom, fullscreen, drag or tap moves, a counter for wins, time and moves, and sound and table-color options.
How the figures were made
The solitaire-turn-3.com team ran these tests in September 2026 on the rules read from this site's East Haven code, in Python 3.11 with the standard library only.
- Numbered deals: seeds 1 to 3,000 for the site rule and 1 to 300 for the single-card comparison.
- Thoughtful solver: a depth-first search that knows face-down cards and the stock order, up to 100,000 positions per deal, sorting each deal into solved, proven impossible or undecided.
- Deal inspection: counts taken straight from the opening layout.
- 95% ranges: Wilson score intervals for percentages, normal intervals for averages.
- Published check: Blake and Gent (2026) report 82.8% for a single-card version. Our own single-card run proves far more deals lost than that allows, so our reading of their rules must differ somewhere we have not found. We quote only the site-rule figure as our result.
Claude, an AI assistant by Anthropic, helped write and review the code and draft this page. It produced no figures; every number comes from running the code, and the team checked them.
East Haven questions
Can I go through the stock again?
No. Each of the 31 stock cards is dealt once.
Are 97.6% of deals winnable for me?
Not necessarily. That solver sees every card; your real chances are lower, and we have no bot figure for East Haven.
Where is the three-card game?
On the home page, with a strategy guide at Klondike Turn 3. All games are on the games page; articles are on the blog.
By Admin, solitaire-turn-3.com (Forty Media). Research run September 2026.