The layout
FreeCell uses one ordinary pack of 52 cards, with no jokers. All of them are dealt face up into eight columns: seven cards in each of the first four columns and six in each of the other four.
Above the columns are eight spaces. The four on the left are the free cells, each of which can hold any single card. The four on the right are the suit piles, one for each suit, which some books call the foundations.
The goal
You win when all 52 cards are on the suit piles. Each pile starts with its Ace and is built up in order, 2, 3, 4 and so on to the King, all of one suit.
How cards move
Only the front card of a column, the one nearest you, can be moved on its own. It can go:
- onto another column, if the card in front there is one rank higher and the other colour: a red 6 (hearts or diamonds) on a black 7 (spades or clubs), a black 9 on a red 10;
- into an empty free cell, where it waits until it can go somewhere else;
- into an empty column, any card at all;
- up to its suit pile, if it is the next card that pile needs.
A card in a free cell can go back onto a column, into an empty column or up to its pile. Once a card is on a suit pile, it stays there.
Moving several cards at once
A run of cards in order, going down one rank at a time in alternating colours, can be moved together. Strictly speaking you are still moving one card at a time, using the free cells and empty columns as stepping stones; the game simply does the steps for you. So how many cards you can move at once depends on how much room you have:
- With no empty free cells and no empty columns, one card.
- Each empty free cell adds one: with all four cells empty, five cards.
- Each empty column doubles that: four empty cells and one empty column let you move ten cards, and two empty columns twenty.
When you move a run into an empty column, that column cannot also be a stepping stone, so it does not count. In short: (empty free cells + 1) × 2 for each empty column you are not moving into.
Cards that go up by themselves
On this site, a card goes up to its suit pile by itself as soon as no column could ever need it again: an Ace or a 2 at once, and a higher card once both piles of the other colour have reached the rank just below it. Cards that might still be useful in a column stay where they are; you can always send one up yourself. When every column is in order from back to front, the game is won, and the last cards go up on their own.
Deal numbers
Windows FreeCell numbered its deals, and players have shared those numbers ever since: “try deal 617”, “has anyone beaten 11982?”. The deals here use exactly the same numbers, from 1 to 1,000,000, so any deal you read about can be played here with the same cards. Press Deal above the cards and type a number, or open a link such as /freecell?deal=1.
Is every FreeCell game winnable?
Almost. FreeCell is famous for this: nearly every deal can be won with careful play. Of the original 32,000 numbered deals, only deal 11982 cannot be won, and of the first million only eight cannot: 11982, 146692, 186216, 455889, 495505, 512118, 517776 and 781948. Across billions of deals, roughly one in eighty thousand cannot be won. A new deal here never gives you one of the eight; you can still choose one by its number if you want to see for yourself.
Tips to win more games
- Look before you move. Every card is face up, so take a moment to find the Aces and 2s, and count how many cards lie on top of each.
- Free the Aces first. Start with the column where an Ace or a 2 is closest to the front.
- Keep the free cells empty. A free cell is a loan, not a home. Each card you leave there means fewer cards you can move at once.
- Empty a column when you can. An empty column is worth more than a free cell, because it doubles the run you can move.
- Mind which card you use. Two cards fit on any card: a black 8 takes the 7 of hearts or the 7 of diamonds. Before you commit one, check whether the other is needed somewhere else.
- Don’t fill the last free cell without a plan. With no cells and no empty columns, you can only move one card at a time.
- Use Undo to explore. Since nothing is hidden, a line that fails teaches you something. Take it back and try another.
Where FreeCell comes from
FreeCell grew out of an older patience called Baker’s Game, which Martin Gardner described in Scientific American in 1968; in Baker’s Game the columns build down by suit. Paul Alfille changed that rule to alternating colours and wrote the first computer version, FreeCell, in 1978 on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois. Microsoft’s version, with its numbered deals, has come with Windows since 1995, which is how most people first met it.
Where to play
Start a game of FreeCell, or try deal 1, an easy one to learn on. If you enjoy patience games, Klondike Solitaire and Spider Solitaire are here too.