By Dan Fletcher
Yukon Solitaire is fun card game, requiring the ability to plan elaborate sequences of long moves. It is quite unusual compared to other solitaire games, because it lets you move stacks of cards when they aren't in sequence.
It isn't possible to win every game of Yukon Solitaire, but a good player should be able to win more than 80% of the games they play, if they use the right strategy...
The key to doing well in Yukon Solitaire is to work backwards. Instead of doing any move that is possible, the player should work to expose the uncovered cards.
Starting from the first stack, look at the top exposed card. Then try and find another card that the exposed card could be moved onto, and then try and re-arrange the cards to make the move.
This might be best shown with an example:
Suppose the top exposed card in a column is a red 3. You need to find a black four to play onto. There is only one black four in play right now, and it has a black 6 directly underneath it. So the black 6 needs to be moved... which means that a red seven is needed. Suppose there is a red 7 visible at the bottom of a stack... Then play would proceed like this:
Black 6 onto the Red 7
Red 3 onto the Black 4
And a covered card in the column has now been exposed.
Now usually, the sequence will take longer than that. Sometimes I've played out sequences over 10 moves long!
You will find that some columns can not be exposed at this time. Either a card in the sequence is missing, or a card you need is already being used (In the example above, if the black four already had a red three underneath it, then play would be blocked, because there would be no where to move the other red three onto).
When that happens, just move onto the next column. I find it helpful to leave my mouse cursor above the column I'm currently analyzing. This helps me to remember which column I am up to, which can be particularly handy if you've just been investigating a really long sequence.
If you can't find any columns that can be exposed, then it's time to start looking for cards to free that can be moved to the foundation. Are there any cards you can move that would allow you to free an Ace?
If you follow this one tip, you should find that you can quite easily win atleast 80% of the Yukon Solitaire games that you play.
Dan Fletcher is a developer at dogMelon. They make Classic Solitaire, a fun pack of Solitaire Card Games for Mac, Palm, and PC. Classic Solitaire includes Yukon Solitaire, along with many other great solitaire games. Try a free demo today! [source]
