Diplomat Solitaire: a long game where patience beats speed
Diplomat uses two decks, 104 cards, but puts only 32 of them on the table: eight face-up columns of four. The other 72 sit in a stock that you turn one card at a time, and you go through it only once. Your job is to build eight foundations, one for each suit of each deck, from Ace up to King.
A one-way stock makes Diplomat a game about timing. Our look-ahead program, which weighs each table move before it turns another stock card, won 47.9% of 2,000 deals (95% range 45.7–50.0%). Even when it lost, it placed on average 76.0 of the 104 cards on the foundations (74.8–77.2). That is what a patient, "use the table first" approach achieves without knowing what is coming next.
One thing we have to say plainly: for Diplomat we tested only this look-ahead program. We did not run a simpler greedy program or a solver that knows the stock order, so we cannot show a greedy-vs-planned gap for this game the way we can for Golf or Pyramid. The figures below describe what one reasonable strategy buys you, not the ceiling.
At a glance: what a careful strategy achieved
| Measure | Result | 95% range | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Look-ahead program won | 47.9% | 45.7–50.0% | 2,000 |
| Cards on foundations at the end (of 104) | 76.0 | 74.8–77.2 | 2,000 |
| Moves in won games, stock turns included | 351.0 | 348.4–353.6 | 957 wins |
| An Ace playable from the opening table | 49.2% | 47.0–51.3% | 2,000 |
The program never used Undo and could not see the stock, so its 47.9% is a floor for a careful human, not a measure of how many deals can be won. We know of no published study of Diplomat to compare with.
Where strategy can make the difference
With no second pass, every stock card you turn too early lands on the waste and may stay buried for dozens of turns. The one rule our program followed strictly was: turn the stock only when no table move improves the position. That habit, not any clever trick, is what the 47.9% rests on. A player who also plans which columns to empty, and uses Undo to test lines, has room to go further.
The 76.0 cards per game also tells you something: most Diplomat losses are near misses. The gap between a loss and a win is often a few cards blocked on the waste, which is exactly where planning ahead helps.
Diplomat rules on spidersolitaireonline.us
- Cards: two standard decks, 104 cards.
- Table: eight columns of four, all face up.
- Stock: 72 cards, turned one at a time onto a waste pile. One pass only.
- Foundations: eight, built up by suit from Ace to King.
- Building on the table: down by one rank, any suit or color.
- Moving: single cards only; runs do not move as a block.
- Empty columns: any card may fill them.
Thinking ahead in Diplomat
Exhaust the table before each stock card
Before you turn, check every column bottom and the waste top against the foundations and the other columns. Our program's whole approach was built on this.
Don't count on an opening Ace
Just under half of deals (49.2%) had an Ace ready at the start. If yours does not, that is normal; most Aces come from the stock.
Keep an empty column in reserve
Any card can go into a space here. An empty column is your best tool for rescuing a card from under the waste or reordering a column, so fill it only for a clear reason.
Build loosely, release in order
Building ignores suit on the table, but foundations do not. Only build a mixed run if you can take it apart one card at a time when the foundations need those cards.
Expect a long game
Won games took about 351 moves, counting each stock turn. Pace yourself, and don't rush the stock to speed things up.
Playing Diplomat here
Diplomat is free in any modern browser on computer, tablet or phone. No download, account, sign-up or email. You get large cards with zoom, Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart, Auto Play, and drag-and-drop or tap. Wins, time and moves are tracked; sound can be switched off; fullscreen and table colors are available.
How we measured it
The spidersolitaireonline.us team ran this test in September 2026 on this site's Diplomat rules.
- Read the rules from our game code: 104 cards, eight face-up columns of four, a 72-card stock with one pass, building down in any suit, single-card moves, any card into an empty column.
- Rebuilt Diplomat in Python with exactly those rules.
- Dealt deals 1 to 2,000 from fixed seeds, so every deal can be replayed.
- Played every deal with one program. It looks up to 300 positions ahead over table and waste moves, scores them (cards home, cards blocking lower cards, links, empty columns, waste size), does not know the stock order and never undoes.
- Computed the 95% range with the Wilson score method.
- Named the limits. No greedy comparison, no solver and no published figure, so there is no independent check on this number.
The code is Python 3.11, standard library only. Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, helped the team write and review the code and draft this page. Every figure comes from running the code, not from the AI, and the team checked the results before publishing.
Diplomat strategy questions
How often can Diplomat be won?
We don't know the ceiling. A careful program that could not see the stock won 47.9%, so a patient player can expect at least that range with practice.
Why can't I move several cards at once?
Diplomat allows single-card moves only. Empty columns are how you rearrange.
Is it like Spider?
It shares Spider's two decks, but everything starts face up and you build to foundations by suit. See Spider Solitaire for a two-deck game where planning around empty columns matters even more, or try classic Solitaire. More games are on the games page.
By Admin, spidersolitaireonline.us. Research run September 2026.