Are all games of solitaire winnable?
No. A solitaire deal is never shuffled to guarantee a win. You play the hand the shuffle gives you, and how often that hand can be beaten depends on the game. In Klondike, the game most people mean by "solitaire," a solver that can see every card wins about 90% of turn-1 deals and about 82% of turn-3 deals. That figure is the ceiling, not the average: a real player, who cannot see the face-down cards, wins less often.
Other games sit lower. Golf can be won under half the time, and Pyramid a little above 60%. FreeCell is the exception, winnable in nearly every deal. So no game of solitaire is a sure thing, and some deals have no solution at all.
Winnability by game
| Game | Winnable rate | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Klondike, draw 1 | about 90.5% | published research, perfect-information play |
| Klondike, draw 3 | about 81.9% | published research, perfect-information play |
| FreeCell | about 99.997% | 31,999 of the original 32,000 Windows deals |
| Golf | 45.6% | our own solve of 500 deals |
| Pyramid | at least 60.6% | our own solve of 500 deals |
| Spider | no reliable figure by suit count | community: 4-suit is much harder |
These numbers describe the odds you play against; deals are never pre-filtered. The Golf and Pyramid figures come from solving every legal line of play with the same game engines this site runs on. Play a hand yourself: