How is Trigon different from Klondike?

By one rule. The tableau builds down in the same suit instead of in alternating colours. The staircase deal, the single card turned from the stock, the unlimited redeals and the King-only spaces are all identical to Klondike.

Why is suit building so much harder?

Because it roughly halves where every card can go. In Klondike a black 8 accepts either red 7; in Trigon the 8 of spades accepts only the 7 of spades, so most cards you turn up have nowhere at all to land.

Can I move several cards at once?

Yes, when they form a packed run descending by one in a single suit. The whole run travels together onto the next card up in that suit, or into an empty column if it is headed by a King.

What can go into an empty column?

Only a King, or a run headed by a King. This is Klondike's rule unchanged, so an empty column is worth nothing until you have a King you can actually reach.

How many times can I go through the stock?

As often as you like — redeals are unlimited. But when a full pass produces no legal move, another pass will not either, because nothing on the board has changed in the meantime.

Should I send cards to the foundations early?

More readily than in Klondike, yes. A card kept in the tableau only helps if the exact next card of its own suit appears, which is a long shot, so holding cards back costs you less often here.

Trigon Solitaire - Play Online & 100% Free

Play Trigon Solitaire — Klondike, Built in Suit

Trigon is one of the cleanest experiments in solitaire. Take Klondike and change exactly one thing: instead of building down in alternating colours, build down in the same suit. Everything else — the seven-column staircase, the single turned card at the tip of each column, one card off the stock at a time, unlimited redeals, Kings only in the spaces — stays identical. That one change roughly halves the places every card can go, and it turns a game most people win sometimes into one they win rarely. Free in your browser, no sign-up.

How Do You Play Trigon?

Goal: build all four foundations from Ace to King by suit.

Setup

Deck: one standard 52-card deck.
Tableau: seven columns of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 cards — 28 in all — with only the last card of each column face up.
Foundations: four, empty.
Stock: the remaining 24 cards, turned one at a time to a waste, recycled without limit.

Rules

Build tableau columns down by suit: the 7 of hearts goes on the 8 of hearts, and on nothing else.
A packed same-suit run travels as a unit.
Only a King, or a King-headed run, may enter an empty column.
A hidden card turns up the moment play exposes it.
Foundations build up by suit from the Ace and are one-way.
One card off the stock at a time, and no limit on redeals.

Trigon Strategy

Suit building makes every host precious. A black 8 in Klondike welcomes two different red 7s; here the 8 of spades welcomes the 7 of spades and nothing else in the entire deck.

Think of each column top as one specific card, not a rank. Before you turn the stock, ask which four cards — one per column top, plus the spaces — could actually land. That short list is your whole set of prospects, and it is much shorter than it feels.
Turning hidden cards beats building. With so few legal builds, tempo comes from exposure. A move that turns a face-down card is nearly always better than a move that merely tidies two visible cards, because it is the only thing that adds new options.
Guard your Kings. A space needs a King, and with suit building a King is also the top of the only run its suit can ever form. Losing track of where the four Kings are is the most common way a Trigon game quietly ends.
Bank more freely than you would in Klondike. A card left in the tableau is only useful if the exact next card of its suit turns up. That is a long shot, so sending cards to the foundations earlier costs you less here than it would in the alternating-colour game.
Know when the cycle is spent. Redeals are unlimited, but if a full pass of the stock offers nothing, another pass offers nothing either — the board has not changed. Recognising that saves a lot of clicking.

Trigon in the Klondike Family

Trigon is registered in the PySol Fan Club collection as a Klondike variant, and its implementation is a single line: swap the alternating-colour tableau stack for a same-suit one that still requires a King in an empty column. Nothing else in the class exists. That makes it the most precise possible measurement of what Klondike's alternating-colour rule is worth, because it is the only variable that changes.

Same-suit building is a recurring idea across solitaire and it almost always makes a game markedly harder, which is why designers usually pay for it somewhere else — with free cells, with more columns, or with an open board. Trigon pays for it with nothing at all, and simply accepts the difficulty. This is the same trade the Forty Thieves family makes, and it is why that family has its reputation.

Its siblings in this catalogue show the other directions the same board can be pushed. Thumb and Pouch loosens the build instead of tightening it — any suit but the card's own — and opens the spaces to any card. Chinaman takes that same loose build and puts the King rule back. Saratoga keeps Klondike's rules exactly and reveals every card instead. Playing them in turn is a short course in what each individual rule does.

One honest note on difficulty. PySolFC rates Trigon balanced, but no published win rate for it that we can find carries a method or a sample size, so this page quotes none. What is structural rather than measured: suit building roughly halves the destinations available to every card, and nothing in the rules compensates for it, so expect to win considerably less often than at Klondike.