This is a guide on how to obtain all the achievements in Big Klondike.
The Basics
Solitaire is a simple game with straightforward rules. There are two sections in the game: the top board and the play area. Cards placed in the top board must be stacked in ascending order, starting with Ace (A) and followed by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack (J), Queen (Q), and King (K), all of the same suit (matching color and symbol). The suits are Spades, Clubs, Hearts, and Diamonds. The first card of a pile in the top board must always be an Ace, and wild cards are not allowed in the top board.
Cards in the play area follow the opposite rules. You can place a card of the opposite color (symbols only matter in the sense that Clubs and Spades are black, and Diamonds and Hearts are red) that is one rank lower than the current card. The order is the exact opposite of the top board: King (K), Queen (Q), Jack (J), 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and Ace (A). For example, on a Black 5, you can place a red 4, and on a red 4, you can place a black 3. You can also move stacks of cards between piles of the same color and value. For instance, you can take a stack of 5, 4, and 3 from a 6 of diamonds and move it to a 6 of hearts. Aces should always be placed in the top board, so you should never have an Ace in your play area unless you’re starting a game or flipping an upside-down card. Initially, cards in the play area are considered wild cards, which means they can be treated as partial piles. Standard piles start with a King, so if you manage to move all the wild cards from the “free spaces,” you can start standard piles in those spaces.
You can flip cards from the deck (cycle through), and when you reach the end of the deck, you will recycle it by going back to the first card and going through the deck again. One major difference between Vegas mode and Standard play is that in Vegas mode, you can only go through the deck once. This makes it harder because you need to make strategic decisions to carry cards with you into the later parts of the game. In Standard play, you can keep going through the deck repeatedly. For example, if a card you need was three cards ago in the deck, you can flip to the end and start over. However, in Vegas mode, you must have either brought that card with you or find a way to reach it by bringing down any cards from the deck that are between you and the card you need.
When playing with Vegas rules, each deal costs you $1 per card (which totals $52). When you first start, your pool is $0, so you will have a balance of -$52. For every card you place into the top board, you win $5 back. You can take cards out of the top pool and use them in the play area if needed, and they won’t cost you any money. However, each card can only earn you $5 once. With 52 cards in a deck, the maximum potential value you can earn is $260 (so you can earn up to $206 per game, including the ante cost). Consequently, you only need to place enough cards in the top board to break even per game. Therefore, even if you lose, you can still end up gaining money in your pool if you have enough moves to play (all Vegas rules games are random deals, so there is a good chance of getting an unwinnable game, so don’t be discouraged).
Winner Winner
Win your first game
This one’s pretty simple, just win a game of solitaire. This can be accomplished easily enough, just select a draw 1, winnable game. If you’re new, it might take you a few tries to learn the mechanics. Have patience.
Undophobia
Win a game without using undo
Just like winner winner this is a pretty simple one. Just play and don’t hit the undo move button at all. You can easily earn this and the previous achievement at the same time.
Play Perfection
Win a game without attempting any bad moves
Simple enough, don’t randomly click on the cards, make sure that every move you make is a legal move.
RNGeeze
Win a game with a random deal
These are the more difficult games to win because unlike winnable games there are a great deal of unwinnable games in solitaire, due to the random nature of card distribution.
Trifectasol
Win 3 games in a row
This one takes a bit of experience with the game, but it’s pretty easy to do, just don’t lose. Simple.
Viva Las Vegas
Win a Vegas game
Win a Vegas scoring game. Because these are all random deals, you might have to do this several times (or even a dozen times).
Daily Five
Win five games on a single day
Just keep playing, you don’t have to get back-to-back wins so this one’s easy enough on winnable deals.
Big 50
Win 50 games
This one’s just a matter of patience (or hobby, depending). I personally like Solitaire, so I will play it in my downtime. It’s probably best to not sit there and try and grind out 50 games in a single session, play a few games a day so you don’t get burnt out.
Bigger 100
Win 100 games
This one is pretty much the previous one, but now it’s 100 games. Very time-consuming.
Streak Me
Win 7 games in a row
This one will take some experience, it’s best to do winnable games for this or you might never get it if you do random draws.
Diligent Gamer
Play every day of the week
Just play a single game of solitaire on every day of the week. So one on Mon, Tue, Wed, etc.
Early Bird
Win a game between 4AM and 8AM
Wake up before work/school and play a quick game early in the morning.
Night Owl
Win a game between 8PM and 3AM
Significantly easier because you can do this in the evening just before bed.
Deck Champ
Win a game without recycling the deck more than once
This one is pretty much compulsory under Vegas scoring, but as it says, don’t recycle the deck. Fairly easy for a winnable deal.
Quick Flash
Win a game under 3 minutes
Play a winnable game and be experienced and this should be easy to do.
Speedy Rabbit
Win a game under 5 minutes
This is even easier than Quick Flash, again, just play a winnable game and don’t be slow.
Slowpoke Turtle
Win a game longer than 10 minutes
This one can be done at the same time as Idle Mode. Pick a winnable game and turn the timer on, then wait til the timer hits 10:00. Or wait til 30:00 to do Idle Mode at the same time.
Idle Mode
Win a game longer than 30 minutes
Avoid hitting the auto-complete button, and play a timed winnable game. Move every card but the last King into the topboard, then after 30:00, finish the game. Easy.
Benjamin
Have $100 total accumulative at once
This requires Vegas scoring, you can get this by winning a Vegas game or getting enough cards into the top board to exceed $100 in your pool. If you are losing a game and you have more than $0 in your pool, hit the “Next Game” button and not the New Game button, as New Game will reset your current pool. If you have less than $0 in your pool at the end of the game, hit New Game.
High Roller
Earn $1,000 total
Total earnings means all-time earnings, so you don’t even have to win a single game to complete this. Even if you reach $-15,000, as long as you move enough cards into the top board (200 cards total) across however many games, you will eventually get this achievement.
And there you are!
I only really wrote this guide for high Roller and Benjamin, but figured I’d list all 20 achievements anyway. If you like solitaire, you can unlock a good number of these achievements just accidentally by playing the game. This is the best Solitaire option on Windows right now because it’s the only solitaire game that isn’t adult only for the card art, and doesn’t feature stupid advertisements between games. This is why you should play Big Klondike instead of the Solitaire games available on the Microsoft Store.
Most of the time I’ve played Big Klondike has been as a hobby, and not for the achievements. So you can probably get 100% achievement completion in a lot less time than my hours in the game. Only on the day I upload this guide did I even look at the achievements I was still missing and quickly sort them out. When I saw the $1,000 for High Roller I thought that meant having $1,000. Thankfully not.
Anyway, that’s all for now, have fun!
