Every Solitaire Game Ranked by Difficulty

The ranking above is not a single-number score. We blend four separate inputs to produce a difficulty tier for each game: win rate at best play, skill contribution, luck factor, and rule complexity. Understanding how each contributes helps readers decide whether our ranking matches the kind of difficulty they care about.

Win rate at best play. We start with the win rate a strong human player (or a solver) achieves on random deals of the game. This is the number most players notice first. But win rate alone is misleading: a game with a ninety-percent win rate that requires perfect play is not easy, and a game with a thirty-percent win rate that requires no decisions is not hard. Win rate is a component, not a verdict.

Skill contribution. Skill contribution measures how much better a strong player is than a random-move baseline. In FreeCell a strong player is dramatically better (the gap between random and skilled play is enormous). In Clock Solitaire the gap is zero because the game makes no decisions. A high skill-contribution number means effort is rewarded; a low number means the deal decides the outcome.

Luck factor. Luck is the mirror of skill contribution: how much of the outcome is fixed by the deal before the player touches a card. Games with high luck factors feel capricious even when you play well; games with low luck factors feel earned, win or lose. FreeCell has very low luck because almost every deal is winnable. Klondike has high luck because the hidden cards decide many deals before the player has any input.

Rule complexity. Some games are simple to learn and hard to play (FreeCell, Spider 4-suit). Others are hard to learn and simple to play once learned (Calculation, Canfield). Rule complexity affects how accessible a game is, even if it does not directly affect win rate. We track it separately because new players care about it and experienced players often forget that it matters.

The tier assignment blends all four inputs using an editorial judgment call, not a formula. We intentionally do not publish a numerical score because the weights depend on what the reader cares about. A player who wants to feel good picks by win rate; a player who wants a challenge picks by skill contribution; a new player picks by rule complexity. Our tiers try to reflect a reasonable overall balance.

Here is what each tier actually represents, beyond the short one-line description in the sections above.

The tier boundaries are judgment calls. A few games could plausibly move one tier in either direction. Calculation could sit in Tier 4; Yukon could sit in Tier 3. We try to be internally consistent and to explain the reasoning for the borderline cases.

Win rate is the first number every player looks at. It is also one of the most misleading numbers in solitaire analysis. Four separate ways win rates mislead are worth naming.

A high win rate does not mean easy. Eight Off has a ninety-percent win rate with skilled play, and Penguin is close behind. Both games require careful planning, disciplined cell management, and an understanding of when to commit Kings. Neither game is easy in the sense that novices can expect to win. The high win rate reflects the fact that the deals are almost always winnable, not that the path to the win is obvious. A beginner tackling Eight Off will likely lose most of their early hands despite the ceiling being ninety percent.

A low win rate does not mean unfair. Scorpion has a five-percent win rate. Flower Garden has a five-percent win rate. Forty Thieves has a roughly ten-percent win rate. These games are not broken; they are designed to reward patience, careful planning, and the acceptance that many deals will simply not yield. Low win rates in this part of the canon are a feature, not a bug. Players who love these games love them precisely because winning is rare.

Reported win rates depend on methodology. A FreeCell win rate of ninety-nine percent typically measures "solver can find a win," which is a different question from "human player will find a win." Klondike win rates depend on whether the game uses draw-1 or draw-3, whether redeals are allowed, and whether the solver looks ahead or plays greedily. We try to be explicit about the methodology behind every number we publish, but comparing win rates across sources requires care.

Win rates hide the distribution. A thirty-percent win rate can mean "thirty percent of deals are easy wins and seventy percent are impossible" or "every deal is a coin flip." These are very different experiences. Klondike has the second pattern; many low-win-rate games in the Tier 5 group have something closer to the first. The distribution of difficulty across deals matters as much as the average.

A cleaner way to think about difficulty is to decompose the outcome into the part driven by the deal (luck) and the part driven by the player (skill). For each game we estimate these two values separately.

Luck component is the variance in outcomes when a strong player plays many random deals. High variance means the deal is driving outcomes; low variance means the player is. Clock Solitaire has maximum luck and zero skill (outcomes are fully determined by the deal, and the player does not get to choose). FreeCell has very low luck and very high skill (outcomes depend almost entirely on the player’s choices).

Skill component is the gap between random-move baseline and best play. In FreeCell that gap is enormous. In Spider 4-suit the gap is large but not as large, because the hidden cards limit how much the player can do. In Klondike the gap is modest because the hidden cards and the stock dictate much of the outcome regardless of skill.

The practical use of this decomposition: pick games whose skill component matches what you want from a session. If you want the game to feel fair, pick high-skill games. If you want variety and surprise, pick high-luck games. If you want to improve as a player, spend your practice time on high-skill games exclusively; high-luck games reward experience, but they do not reward deliberate practice in the same way.