Yukon: Klondike's layout without the stock
Take Klondike, deal the 24 stock cards onto the table instead, and let any face-up card move with everything on top of it. That is Yukon. For a site about the three-card draw, it is the cleanest experiment we have: the same kind of seven-column layout, the same alternating colors and Kings-only empty columns, and no stock at all. There is nothing to turn, one card or three.
So is it easier? For a solver that sees the hidden cards, Yukon looks a lot like Klondike Turn 3. It solved 67.00% of 500 deals (95% range 62.76%–70.98%), proved 3.40% impossible (2.13%–5.38%) and left 29.60% undecided (25.77%–33.75%). Klondike Turn 3's solver on our home page solved 66.2% of 1,000 deals with 24.3% undecided. The difference is where the difficulty lives: in Turn 3 it hides in the stock; in Yukon, under 21 face-down cards on the table. Without a draw, the deal and your planning decide.
At a glance: Yukon on this site
| Measure | Result | 95% range | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solved (thoughtful solver, sees hidden cards) | 67.00% | 62.76–70.98% | 500 |
| Proven impossible | 3.40% | 2.13–5.38% | 500 |
| Undecided within the budget | 29.60% | 25.77–33.75% | 500 |
| Simple look-ahead bot, sees only face-up cards: won | 4.45% | 4.06–4.87% | 10,000 |
| Bot moves in won games | 96.95 moves | 96.45–97.44 | 445 wins |
| Cards on foundations at the end (all games) | 7.41 cards | 7.20–7.62 | 10,000 |
| Aces starting face down (of 4) | 1.63 Aces | 1.61–1.64 | 10,000 |
The solver is a ceiling: it knows the hidden cards, which no player does, so the winnable share lies between 67.0% and 96.6%. The bot is a weak floor; a patient human with Undo does clearly better than 4.45%. Yukon is not covered by the published study of Blake and Gent (2026).
Buried Aces: do they matter without a stock?
In Klondike Turn 3, deals with no Ace face down went better for our bot (12.29%, range 10.55%–14.27%, 1,196 deals) than deals with two or more (10.14%, 9.36%–10.98%, 5,333 deals). In Yukon we found no such effect: 4.42% with two or more Aces face down (3.90%–5.00%, 5,413 deals) against 4.49% with none or one (3.93%–5.13%, 4,587 deals). Because any face-up card can move with its whole pile, digging to a buried Ace is less of a problem here than getting the right card out of a three-card stock.
Yukon rules on this site
- Deal: seven columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards; the last five of each column (after the first) face up.
- Moving: any face-up card may move with all cards on top of it, even if they are not in order.
- Building: the moved card goes on a card one rank higher, opposite color.
- Empty columns: Kings only.
- Foundations: up by suit from Ace to King.
- No stock: nothing to draw or redeal.
Playing Yukon
Aim at the hidden cards
All your uncertainty sits under the face-down cards. Choose moves that turn one over.
Move big piles on purpose
You can move a card with a messy pile on top. It is powerful, but a pile moved without a plan often buries something you need.
Kings need homes
Only Kings take empty columns. Clear one when a King with useful cards on it is ready.
Build foundations steadily
The bot ended with 7.41 cards home on average. Every card sent up is one fewer to juggle.
Use Undo
With hidden cards and no stock, trying a line and backing up is how you learn a deal.
Turn 1, Turn 3 or no draw at all
For reference, here is what the draw rule does in Klondike on this site. Our simple bot, which sees only face-up cards and never undoes, won 42.3% of 10,000 Turn 1 deals (41.3%–43.3%) and 10.6% of 10,000 Turn 3 deals (10.0%–11.2%). In the games it did win, it went through the stock 2.34 times at Turn 1 and 3.81 times at Turn 3. Yukon takes the stock away and puts those 24 cards on the table. Our Yukon bot won only 4.45%, but it is a weak program, so this does not mean Yukon is harder for people than Turn 3; we have no measure of that.
Without a stock, the chance a deal gives you is fixed the moment the cards land. Nothing you turn later can help or hurt, so every decision you make on the table counts for more.
Playing on solitaire-turn-3.com
Yukon is free in any current browser on computer, tablet or phone, with no account. Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play are included, along with zoom, fullscreen, drag or tap moves, a counter for wins, time and moves, and sound and table-color settings. For the same columns with a stock, try Klondike (Turn 1) or Klondike Turn 3.
How the figures were made
The solitaire-turn-3.com team ran these tests in September 2026 on this site's rules, in Python 3.11 with the standard library only.
- Rules from the code: as listed above.
- Numbered deals: seeds 1 to 10,000 for the bot, 1 to 500 for the solver.
- Look-ahead bot: searches 300 positions per turn over visible cards only, never undoes.
- Thoughtful solver: a depth-first search that sees face-down cards, up to 50,000 positions per deal.
- No published check: Yukon does not appear in Blake and Gent (2026).
- 95% ranges: Wilson score intervals for shares, normal intervals for averages.
Claude, an AI assistant by Anthropic, helped write and review the code and draft this page. Every figure comes from running the code, and the team checked them.
Yukon questions
Is Yukon easier than Klondike Turn 3?
For a solver that sees everything, about the same. For a player, we cannot say: our Yukon bot is too weak to compare fairly.
Is there a draw setting?
No. Yukon has no stock.
What is similar?
Alaska uses the same deal with suit-based building. All games are on the games page; articles are on the blog.
By Admin, solitaire-turn-3.com (Forty Media). Research run September 2026.