FreeCell, the thinking person’s solitaire
FreeCell is the solitaire where every card is dealt face up. Nothing is hidden and nothing is left to the luck of the stock: all 52 cards are on the table from the first move, and four free cells in the top left corner give you room to work. It is the game that came with Windows from 1995 onwards, and for many people it is the patience game they play most. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to install, and your game is saved in this browser if you need to stop.
The numbered deals
Every deal here has a number, shown at the top of the table, and the numbers are the ones the Windows game used. Deal 1 here is the same as deal 1 in Windows FreeCell, and so is every other deal from 1 to 1,000,000. To play a particular deal, press Deal at the top and type its number, or share a link such as afternoongames.com/freecell?deal=617 and a friend can play exactly the same cards.
Almost every FreeCell deal can be won. In the first million, only eight cannot, the most famous being deal 11982. New deal never gives you one of those eight.
How to play
The goal is to move every card onto four piles at the top right, one for each suit, building each from the Ace up to the King. The full rules, with pictures and tips.
- The columns. Cards go down in order and alternate colours: a red 6 on a black 7, a black Jack on a red Queen.
- The free cells. Each of the four cells holds any one card. Use them to park a card while you dig out the one beneath it.
- Moving several cards. Cards in order can move together, as many as you could move one at a time using the empty free cells and empty columns: five with four empty cells, and twice as many for each empty column.
- Empty columns take any card, or any run of cards in order.
- The suit piles start with an Ace and take the 2, 3 and so on of the same suit. Cards that no column can need any more go up by themselves.
Controls
Tap or click a card and it goes to the best place for it: up to its suit pile when it fits there, otherwise onto a column, into an empty column, or, if there is nowhere else, into a free cell. Tap a card in the middle of a run to move the run from there. You can also drag a card, or a run of cards, where you want it. With a keyboard, Tab moves between the cards that can move and Enter moves one. H asks for a hint, U undoes and N starts a new deal.
Undo takes back any move, as many times as you like. Hint looks ahead for a way to win from where you are and shows the next move, with a sentence that says why. Once every column is in order, the last cards go up to their piles by themselves.
Large, clear cards
The cards grow to fill your screen, and every card shows its rank and suit in large print in its top corner, so you can read them even when they overlap. Hearts and diamonds are red, spades and clubs are black, and the table is a calm green. On a phone, turn it sideways for wider cards, and use Settings to make the text larger or to switch to a darker screen in the evening.
A few tips
- Look before you move: every card is visible, so find the Aces and the cards sitting on them first.
- Keep free cells empty. Each card parked in one halves your room to move runs later.
- An empty column is worth more than a free cell: it doubles how many cards you can move at once.
- When you are stuck, undo a few moves and try another way. With so few deals that cannot be won, there is nearly always a way through.
For the full rules, the deal numbers and more ways to win, read how to play FreeCell. Fancy something different? Try Klondike Solitaire, Spider Solitaire or Mahjong Solitaire.