Double Klondike Solitaire Strategy Guide

Double Klondike Solitaire — also known as Gargantua — takes everything you know about standard Klondike and scales it up. Two full decks. Nine tableau columns. Eight foundation piles. More cards to juggle, more opportunities to build sequences, and a genuinely different strategic challenge that veteran solitaire players find refreshing.

If you have already mastered standard Klondike, Double Klondike is the natural next step. It rewards the same core skills — sequence building, suit tracking, patience — but the expanded board introduces complexity that keeps even experienced players engaged.

What Is Double Klondike (Gargantua)?

Double Klondike is played with two standard 52-card decks shuffled together, creating a 104-card game. The name "Gargantua" references the larger-than-life scale of the game, borrowed from Rabelais' giant character — a fitting name for a solitaire game twice the normal size.

The game is widely popular in online solitaire communities across the United States, particularly among players who find standard Klondike too quick to complete or too straightforward after many plays. It offers substantially longer play sessions and a richer decision tree than the single-deck version.

Double Klondike Setup

Setting up Double Klondike correctly is essential. The layout mirrors Klondike's logic but expands it.

Dealing the Tableau

Deal 9 tableau columns as follows:

• Column 1: 1 card (face-up)
• Column 2: 2 cards (1 face-down, 1 face-up)
• Column 3: 3 cards (2 face-down, 1 face-up)
• Continue this pattern through...
• Column 9: 9 cards (8 face-down, 1 face-up)

This uses 45 cards for the tableau. The remaining 59 cards go to the stock pile, dealt one or three at a time depending on the variant you prefer.

Foundations

Set up 8 foundation piles — two for each suit (two for Hearts, two for Spades, two for Diamonds, two for Clubs). Each foundation starts with an Ace and builds up to King in suit. Because there are two of every card, each suit has two full foundation sequences to complete.

Stock and Wastepile

The stock operates identically to standard Klondike. In draw-one mode, flip one card at a time. In draw-three mode, flip three cards and only the top card of the wastepile is playable. Draw-one is recommended for beginners to Double Klondike since the expanded board is already more complex.

How Double Klondike Rules Differ from Standard Klondike

The core mechanics are identical to standard Klondike rules: build tableau columns in descending order with alternating red and black suits, move sequences together, use the stock when stuck, and move cards to foundations as soon as possible.

The differences are structural rather than rule-based:

Two copies of every card. This is the most strategically significant change. In standard Klondike, there is exactly one 7 of Hearts. In Double Klondike, there are two. This means you can have two 7-of-Hearts-on-8-of-Spades setups simultaneously, and it also means you have redundancy when one copy of a needed card is buried.

Nine columns instead of seven. The wider tableau gives you more room to build sequences and more positions to park cards temporarily. It also means more hidden face-down cards to uncover, so the early game is even more about efficient uncovering than building foundations.

Eight foundations to fill. Each suit requires two complete Ace-to-King sequences. The game is not finished until all 104 cards are in the foundations — a significantly longer and more involved endgame than standard Klondike.

Strategy for Double Klondike

Uncover Face-Down Cards First

With 45 cards dealt into the tableau (36 of them face-down), uncovering hidden cards is your primary early-game task. Every face-down card represents an unknown that limits your planning. Prioritize moves that flip tableau cards over building foundations prematurely.

This principle is covered in depth in our best first moves in solitaire guide — it applies directly and powerfully to Double Klondike.

Use Duplicate Cards Strategically

When you have two copies of the same card available, think carefully before moving either one. Consider which position each copy could occupy and where they will be most useful. Moving the first copy to a foundation might be premature if that card is also needed to unlock a tableau sequence.

This is a genuinely new strategic layer that does not exist in standard Klondike. The presence of duplicates creates decisions that require looking multiple moves ahead.

Manage Empty Columns Conservatively

With nine columns, empty columns feel less precious than in standard Klondike's seven-column layout — but they are still powerful. An empty column is a free parking space for any card or sequence. Do not fill empty columns just because you can. Hold them for situations where you need to temporarily displace a card to access what's beneath it.

Think in Suit Pairs

Since each suit has two foundation piles to fill, think of foundations in pairs. If both Aces of Spades are in play, you should be actively building two separate Spades sequences. Keeping track of how far along each pair is will help you prioritize which cards to send to foundations versus keep in the tableau.

Our advanced solitaire strategies guide covers suit-tracking methods that translate directly to Double Klondike's paired-foundation approach.

The Two-Player Version of Double Klondike

Double Klondike also has a popular competitive two-player variant, sometimes called Double Solitaire or Racing Solitaire, that is played in households across the United States.

How Two-Player Double Klondike Works

Each player uses their own standard deck — or one player uses the blue-backed deck and the other uses the red-backed deck from a double-deck set. Both players deal a standard Klondike layout simultaneously. The foundation piles are shared in the center of the table.

Players race to build foundations. Either player can place a card on any shared foundation pile, but you can only move cards from your own tableau and stock. The first player to build all four foundations wins. If one player gets stuck, the other can continue until both players are stuck, at which point the player with fewer cards remaining wins.

This competitive version is fast-paced, chaotic, and surprisingly tense. It strips away the meditative quality of solo solitaire and replaces it with quick decision-making under social pressure. It is a great game for two players who want a card game without complex rules.

Why Online Players Love Double Klondike

The online solitaire community has embraced Double Klondike for several reasons that physical card players often miss out on:

The undo feature in digital versions makes the game far more playable. With 104 cards in play, a single misclick or misjudged move can be catastrophic — undo capability lets you explore more aggressively. Visit soliatre.us to try a version with full undo support.

Auto-complete removes the tedious endgame once the path to victory is clear. In a physical game, moving 104 cards one at a time to the foundations takes minutes. Digitally, it is instant.

Statistics tracking lets players compare win rates across sessions. Many players find their Double Klondike win rate starts much lower than their Klondike rate and gradually converges as they internalize the strategy adjustments required by the two-deck format.

For a broader look at how Double Klondike compares to other variations, see our comparison of popular solitaire games.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many cards are in Double Klondike Solitaire? Double Klondike uses two standard 52-card decks shuffled together, for a total of 104 cards. The tableau uses 45 of these cards across 9 columns, and the remaining 59 cards form the stock pile.

What is the difference between Double Klondike and Gargantua? They are the same game. "Double Klondike" describes the format (double deck), while "Gargantua" is the traditional name used in card game reference books. Both terms refer to the same two-deck, nine-column, eight-foundation solitaire game.

Is Double Klondike harder than standard Klondike? It depends on how you define harder. The rules are the same, but managing 104 cards instead of 52 introduces more complexity, longer games, and more decisions to make. Most players find it harder initially but more rewarding once they adapt their strategy to the expanded format.

Can you play Double Klondike with a physical deck? Yes. You need two standard decks. Some players use a double deck set with contrasting back colors to more easily distinguish the two decks if needed. The physical game plays exactly like the digital version, though without undo, auto-complete, or statistics tracking.

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💡 Variant Strategy Note (2026)

Each solitaire variation demands unique table space management. In column-heavy formats like Spider or Yukon, prioritize unlocking hidden columns early to act as temporary staging areas.