Easthaven Solitaire: a generous game, and a result we could not match to the literature
Easthaven (often written East Haven) looks like a short-handed Klondike: seven columns of just three cards, most of them face down, and a stock that deals a fresh card onto every column at once. On this site you can move whole runs of cards, and that one rule makes the game remarkably forgiving. A solver that could see every card, including the hidden ones and the order of the stock, won 97.6% of 3,000 deals, proved none impossible and left 2.4% undecided.
That is a ceiling, not a prediction of your own results: a real player cannot see the hidden cards. It is also where this page has to be candid. The University of St Andrews study does publish a figure for East Haven, but for a stricter version where only one card moves at a time, so it cannot be compared with this site's game. And when we tried that stricter version ourselves, our result disagreed sharply with theirs. We explain what we found below, and what we don't yet know.
Our figures, and the published one
| Version | Solved | Proven impossible | Undecided | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This site's rules (runs may move) | 97.6% (95% range 97.0–98.1%) | 0 (range 0–0.13%) | 2.4% | 3,000 |
| Ours, one card at a time | 14.0% | 42.3% | 43.7% | 300 |
| St Andrews study, one card at a time | 82.844% winnable (±0.100%) | – | ||
All three rows describe a solver that sees every card, so they are upper limits on what a player can achieve.
The disagreement, explained honestly
Under the one-card rule, our solver proved at least 36.9% of deals impossible (the lower end of our 95% range for that 42.3%). If the published 82.844% were right for the rules we coded, no more than about 17% of deals could be impossible. Both cannot be true for the same game.
The most likely explanation is that our reading of the study's East Haven rules differs from theirs in some detail we have not yet identified — how the stock is dealt, perhaps, or exactly what may fill an empty column. We have not found the difference, so we do not claim the published figure is wrong, and we do not use our one-card result as a statement about their game.
What we can say with confidence is narrower: under this site's rules, where runs can be moved, a solver that sees everything found a win in 97.6% of our deals and could not prove a single one lost.
How Easthaven works here
The deal
One pack of 52 cards. Seven columns get three cards each, with only the top card face up, so 14 cards start hidden. The other 31 cards form the stock.
Dealing from the stock
There is no waste pile. Each time you click the stock, one card is dealt face up onto every column, left to right. Four deals of seven use 28 cards, and the fifth and final deal gives the last three cards to the first three columns. You may deal even when a column is empty, and there is no redeal.
Building and moving
- Build down in alternating colours: a red Jack on a black Queen.
- A correctly built run can be moved as a unit.
- Any card, or any run, may go into an empty column.
- Foundations are built up in suit from Ace to King.
What the deals told us
- A dead start is possible. In 8.2% of deals none of the seven face-up cards could move anywhere at the start, so the first action was a deal from the stock.
- About one Ace starts hidden. On average 1.06 of the four Aces begin face down.
- Moving runs is what makes the game kind. With runs, not one of 3,000 deals was proven lost; with single cards, at least a third of 300 deals were.
Playing Easthaven well
Work the columns before you deal
Every stock deal covers all seven columns with a new card. Make every useful move first, because a deal may bury the card you were about to use.
Empty columns are gold
Since any card or run can go into a space, an empty column is the most flexible tool you have. Use it to unpick a column with hidden cards.
Keep runs tidy
Long, correctly built runs can be moved in one go. The cleaner your runs, the easier it is to reach what lies beneath.
Count the deals
There are five, and the stock never comes back. Know how many you have left.
Easthaven on solitaire-free.uk
Free to play in any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone, with nothing to download and no account. Big, readable cards and a zoom control; Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play; drag-and-drop or tap-to-move; wins, time and moves for the current game; and options to mute sound, go fullscreen and change the table colour.
How we ran the research, step by step
- Rules from our code. Seven columns of three with the top card up, a 31-card stock dealt one card to each column with no redeal, dealing allowed with empty columns, alternating-colour building, runs move, any card into a space.
- Two versions. We coded the site's rules and, for comparison, a one-card-at-a-time version matching the rule described in the St Andrews study.
- Numbered deals. 3,000 deals (seeds 1 to 3,000) under the site's rules and 300 (seeds 1 to 300) under the one-card rule, each shuffled from a numbered seed.
- A solver that sees everything. Our solver knows the face-down cards and the order of the stock, like the "thoughtful" solvers in the published study. It searched up to 100,000 positions per deal.
- Smaller sample for the comparison. The one-card version is much slower to search, so we ran 300 deals to keep the run manageable.
- Checking against St Andrews. Blake and Gent (Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 2026) report 82.844% for the one-card rule. Our one-card version disagrees, as explained above, and we have not resolved why.
- Margin of error. Under the site's rules the 95% range for "solved" is 97.0% to 98.1%.
- Limits. Every figure here is a ceiling for a player who could see all the cards. Real play will fall short of it.
Behind the numbers: the code
The solver is in easthaven.py, written in Python 3.11 with nothing outside the standard library. It is a depth-first search: it follows one line of play as far as it goes, backs up when stuck, and keeps a set of positions it has already visited so it never explores the same one twice. Safe cards go to the foundations automatically. A shared runner spread the deals among the cores of one machine with Python's multiprocessing; the site-rule run took about seven minutes and the one-card run about five. Ranges are Wilson score intervals. Claude, an AI assistant built by Anthropic, helped us write and review this solver and draft the page; the figures come only from running it.
Frequently asked questions
How winnable is Easthaven on this site?
Very, if you could see every card: 97.6% of our deals were solved and none was proven impossible. Real players, who can't see hidden cards, will win less often.
Why don't you quote the published figure as the answer?
Because it is for a stricter rule where only single cards move. This site lets you move runs.
Is the published figure wrong?
We don't claim that. Our attempt at the same rule gave a very different answer, which most likely means our rules differ from theirs in a way we haven't found.
Can I deal when a column is empty?
Yes. Easthaven here does not make you fill spaces first.
What is similar?
Try Klondike Solitaire, which also hides cards, or Yukon, where groups of cards move freely. All the games are on the games page.
By Admin, solitaire-free.uk. Study date: 19 September 2026.