Alaska Solitaire vs Russian Solitaire: A Comprehensive Guide

Solitaire fans often encounter many Yukon-style variants, including Alaska Solitaire and Russian Solitaire. Both are tough one-deck patience games similar to Yukon/Klondike, but with key rule differences. In Alaska Solitaire, tableau cards can build up or down by suit, whereas in Russian Solitaire they build down only by suit. These seemingly small changes make a big impact on strategy and difficulty. Here’s a detailed comparison of the rules, followed by a brief history of each game. If you want to try them yourself, you can play Alaska Solitaire or Russian Solitaire online at SolitaireX (no download needed).

How Alaska Solitaire Works

• Setup: Alaska Solitaire uses a standard 52-card deck. The cards are dealt into 7 tableau piles (usually 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 cards in each pile), with all tableau cards face-up. (Unlike Klondike, there is no face-down stack on the tableau.) The remaining cards may be set aside (often there is no stock or waste). The objective is to move all cards to 4 foundation piles by suit, building each foundation up from Ace to King.

• Building in the Tableau: In Alaska Solitaire, you can build tableau sequences either descending or ascending by suit. For example, you can place the 9♢ on an 8♢ or on a 10♢. This bi-directional building (up or down in rank, but still by suit) is the defining feature of Alaska Solitaire.

• Moving Cards: Any face-up card (and the partial sequence above it) can be moved if it fits by suit. You may move a pile regardless of the internal order of the cards, as long as its top card is one rank higher or lower and the same suit as the card it’s being placed on. For example, a pile starting with J♠ can be moved onto a 10♠ or a Q♠.

• Empty Columns: Only a King (or a correctly ordered sequence beginning with a King) can be placed into an empty tableau column. This is the same rule as in Yukon: empty spaces cannot be filled by any other rank.

• Foundations and Win Condition: Foundations are built up by suit from Ace through King. When all 52 cards are moved to the foundations, the game is won. Alaska Solitaire requires careful planning (it has a very low win rate in practice).

How Russian Solitaire Works

• Setup: Russian Solitaire also uses one 52-card deck arranged in 7 tableau piles. (Some sources deal 1, 2, … up to 7 cards in each pile so all cards are in the tableau, often with no stock or waste pile.) In typical play, all cards in the tableau are face-up, and there is no separate draw pile or discard.

• Building in the Tableau: The critical rule of Russian Solitaire is that tableau sequences must be built down in rank by suit only. For example, 8♠ can be placed on 9♠, but you cannot build upwards. (This is similar to Yukon, except Yukon alternates color instead of suit.) All moves must follow the one-suit sequence rule.

• Moving Cards: Like Alaska (and like Yukon), you may move any face-up card and all cards above it as a group. But you can only place it on a card of the same suit and one rank higher (i.e. one rank above the top card of the moving group). For example, a pile headed by 5♣ can move onto a 6♣.

• Empty Columns: As in Alaska, only Kings (or a descending-sequence starting with a King) may fill empty tableau spaces.

• Foundations and Win Condition: Foundations are built up by suit from Ace to King as usual. You win by moving all cards to the foundation piles. Note that because Russian Solitaire restricts building to descending suit sequences only, it is considerably harder to win than Alaska Solitaire; in practice only a small fraction of deals are winnable.

Key Rule Differences

• Build Direction: In Alaska Solitaire, you can build sequences up or down by suit (the game alternates up-down depending on your move). In Russian Solitaire, you build only down by suit. This means Alaska gives you two options (one rank higher or lower) for placing a card of the same suit, while Russian gives only one.

• Tableau Movement: Both games allow moving partial piles (a card and any cards atop it) regardless of the internal order of those cards. This Yukon-style rule is shared by both variants.

• Empty Columns: In practice, both games restrict filling empty tableau columns to Kings (plus descending sequences starting from a King). (Some older references to Alaska call a variant “Whitehead” where any card can go to an empty spot, but the standard rules use the King-only rule.)

• Stock/Waste Pile: Typically neither game uses a stock or waste pile – all cards are dealt at the start and played from the tableau. (Some modern digital versions of Alaska Solitaire include a small stock with draws, but the classic versions have no stock.)

• Foundation Building: Both games use four foundation piles built up by suit from Ace to King. This is the same as in Yukon or Klondike.

• Visibility of Cards: Like Yukon, all tableau cards are face-up at the start (no hidden cards). This means you have full information as in Yukon, unlike Klondike where many cards start face-down.

In summary, Alaska Solitaire is slightly more flexible because you can build up or down by suit. Russian Solitaire is stricter (and harder) because it only allows building down by suit. Both are Yukon-style games (all cards face-up, group moves allowed), but Alaska’s two-way building often makes it more about planning sequences, whereas Russian’s one-way building makes it very challenging to expose cards and complete the foundations.

Where to Play Online

You can try both games for free on SolitaireX with no download required. For example:

• Play Alaska Solitaire on SolitaireX – Experience the up-or-down building and flexible play of Alaska’s version.
• Play Russian Solitaire on SolitaireX – Challenge yourself with the strict suit-only descending build of Russian Solitaire.

These online versions include hints, undos, and a clean interface, making it easy to practice the strategies of each variant.

History and Origins

Both games are relatively modern variants of Yukon solitaire. The exact origins are a bit obscure:

• Alaska Solitaire first appeared in the mid-1990s as a new Yukon-style variant. In fact, it originated in the computer game Pretty Good Solitaire (PGS) around 1996. According to the game’s creator, Alaska Solitaire was added by user suggestion in PGS version 2.2 in 1996, and it has since been copied by many solitaire collections. (Prior to that, it wasn’t a widely known game.)

• Russian Solitaire is thought to have appeared around the same era as Yukon itself (Yukon is often attributed to American sources in the 1940s–1950s). The precise inventor of Russian Solitaire is unknown. It may have emerged organically as players tried Yukon without the color-alternation rule. Today it’s simply known as a hard “suit-only” Yukon variant.

For more background, you can check Wikipedia’s Yukon (solitaire) page. Yukon is the parent game of both Alaska and Russian; Wikipedia notes that Alaska and other variants are closely related to Yukon. (Be careful not to confuse Russian Solitaire with Nidgi Novgorod, an older game from 1903 sometimes called “Russian Solitaire,” or with Russian Patience, a two-deck 19th-century game.) These historical notes remind us that many patience games have complex lineages.

In any case, Alaska and Russian Solitaire today are defined by their rule tweaks: the former’s dual-direction suit builds and the latter’s stricter single-direction suit builds. Both demand thoughtful play, but in different ways – and now you know exactly how their rules compare. Enjoy practicing each variant on SolitaireX to see the contrasts in action!

Sources: The rules above are based on standard Yukon variant descriptions. Differences between Alaska and Russian are confirmed by experts. Historical origins draw on discussions by game authors and the Yukon (solitaire) Wikipedia page.