Most Klondike deals are won or lost on two things: turning face-down cards over as soon as you can, and not using up the moves you will need later. Play from the columns before the stock, empty a column only when a king is ready for it, and do not put cards home faster than the board can spare them.
None of this turns every deal into a win — about one Turn 3 deal in five cannot be won even with every card in view. But it is the difference between winning the deals that can be won and losing them. Open a deal of Klondike Solitaire alongside and try each habit as you read. Most of these came out of watching the solver take lines I would never have played, then working out why they were better.
1. Turn hidden cards over first
Every face-down card is a move you cannot see yet. A move that turns one over is almost always better than a move that does not, and the columns on the right, with the most cards hidden, are where it matters most. When you have a choice, take the move that uncovers a card in the deepest column.
2. Play from the columns before the stock
Cards in the stock will come round again; cards in the columns will not uncover themselves. Before you turn the stock, look for every move on the table. It is easy to start clicking the stock out of habit and walk past a move that would have opened the game.
3. Do not empty a column without a king to fill it
Only a king can go into an empty column. An empty column with no king to fill it is a space you cannot use, and getting there may have cost you a card that was holding something up. Empty a column when a king is waiting — on the waste, or sitting on face-down cards that it would uncover.
4. Choose your king with the queens in mind
When two kings could take an empty column, look at the queens. A red king needs a black queen, a black king a red one. Pick the king whose queen is free or close to free, so the column starts building at once instead of sitting with a lone king in it.
5. Do not rush cards home
Aces and twos should go to the foundations straight away; nothing can ever stand on them. After that, a card that goes home is a card that can no longer hold anything. A black five on the table can take a red four; on its foundation it cannot. Put a card home when the cards of the other colour one rank lower are home too, or when it is the move that frees a hidden card.
6. Keep your options open between two equal moves
If a red six could go on either of two black sevens, choose the seven whose column you are less likely to need to move. Usually that is the one with no face-down cards under it. The other seven, still free, may be exactly what a run from elsewhere needs later.
7. In Turn 3, change the packets on purpose
In Turn 3 the stock comes round in the same packets of three unless you play from the waste. Taking even one card off the waste shifts every packet after it, bringing different cards to the top. If a card you need is stuck second in a packet, playing a waste card you would otherwise leave can bring it up next time. The difference between Turn 1 and Turn 3 is mostly about this.
8. Count the stock before you need it
On your first pass, notice what is in the stock and where. Knowing that a red jack is coming two packets from now changes which black queen you keep free. You do not need to memorise it all — just the cards your columns are waiting for.
9. Use undo to explore, not just to fix
Undo here goes as far back as you like and costs no points. Use it to look down a line: try the move, see what it opens, and take it back if it leads nowhere. That is what strong players do in their heads; undo lets you do it on the table.
10. Know when a deal is gone
If you have been round the stock twice and nothing new has come up, and every move would only cover a card you need, the deal is very probably lost. That is not a failure — even with all the cards in view, an expert in a Stanford study won 36.6% of Turn 3 deals. Start a new one.
What the hint button thinks
The hint in this game follows the same order of priorities: a card home when nothing on the table can still need it, then a move that turns a hidden card over, then the waste, then the rest — and it never suggests a move that only shuffles a run between two equal cards. When you are stuck, it is a good way to check what you have missed. When it has nothing to suggest, it says so.
The same habits carry over to FreeCell and Spider: free the cards you need, keep empty space for as long as you can, and do not spend a move you might need later. Back to all the solitaire games.