Carlton Solitaire takes the familiar Klondike framework and doubles the deck. Then it tightens the screws. You may move only one card at a time in the tableau. You get just one pass through the stock. The layout feels like Klondike — fanned piles, foundations, stock and waste. But the restrictions make every move count.
Objective: Move all 104 cards to the eight foundation piles, building them up by suit from Ace to King.
In Klondike you can pick up a whole red-black run and relocate it. Carlton refuses. To move a five-card run, you must move five single cards. Each one needs a legal landing spot. Add the single trip through the stock, and Carlton becomes a game of precise sequencing. The one mercy is that any card may fill an empty space — and you'll need it.
Because there is no redeal, the waste pile is a one-way gate. Before each draw, scan the tableau: is there any move that creates a home for cards you know are coming? Serious Carlton play happens between draws, not after them.
Moving a three-card run through an empty pile takes several moves. Park the top card in the space. Move the next onto a legal card or a second space, and so on. Count the moves and the landing spots before you start. Half-finished relocations are how piles get hopelessly tangled.
In Klondike you often keep cards in the tableau for building. Carlton reverses this - get cards onto the foundations quickly, because single-card movement means a low card in the tableau helps you far less than it would in Klondike.
Kings are no longer space-hogs — any card can fill a space — but a King dealt onto a pile still blocks everything beneath it, and only an empty pile or a foundation can ever relieve it. Uncover Kings early so they don't ambush you late.
Carlton is a classic two-deck patience that appears in 20th-century solitaire compilations as a stricter sibling of Double Klondike. The name's origin is unclear — it may echo the Carlton Club, the prestigious London gentlemen's club, in the same way many patience games borrowed aristocratic names.
Carlton illustrates an important principle in game design: tightening one or two rules can transform the entire experience. Same layout, same building rule as Klondike — but single-card moves and a single stock pass produce a completely different, far more demanding game.
Carlton is significantly harder than Klondike or Double Klondike. There is no redeal and there are no sequence moves. So a large share of deals cannot be beaten, no matter how well you play. Even promising positions collapse if the stock arrives in the wrong order. Treat every win as an achievement.
Three ways. It uses two decks, with eight tableau piles and eight foundations. You may move only one card at a time — no picking up sequences. And the stock allows a single pass with no redeal. The building rules themselves — down in alternating colors, up by suit — are pure Klondike.
No! That's the defining restriction. Even a perfectly ordered red-black run must be dismantled and moved one card at a time, with each card needing its own legal destination.
Yes — unlike Klondike, spaces are not reserved for Kings. This is your main tool for untangling piles, so create and protect empty spaces.
Many deals are, but many are not — the single stock pass means one badly ordered stretch of cards can doom a game. Experienced players lose more games than they win; that's by design.
Work the tableau before touching the stock: uncover face-down cards, free Aces, and try to open a space. Only start drawing once the tableau is out of moves.
No! With single-card movement the tableau offers little flexibility. Move cards to the foundations as soon as it's safe.
vs. Klondike: Same building rules, but two decks, single-card moves and no redeal make Carlton far harder.
vs. Double Klondike: The same two-deck layout — but Double Klondike lets you move sequences and redeal the stock; Carlton allows neither.
vs. Forty Thieves: Both are two-deck, one-card-at-a-time, one-pass games; Forty Thieves deals ten piles of four with no face-down cards and builds down by suit.
If you've mastered Klondike and find Double Klondike too forgiving, Carlton offers the perfect next step. The familiar framework means no learning curve, but the movement and stock restrictions create entirely new strategic considerations. Carlton rewards patient, thoughtful play and punishes hasty moves.
Ready for a real challenge? Take on Carlton Solitaire now!