FreeCell Solitaire

FreeCell rules

FreeCell uses one 52-card deck, all dealt face up into eight columns: seven cards in each of the first four and six in the other four. Above them sit four free cells and four foundations. There's no stock, so every deal is a puzzle you can see in full.

• Goal: build all four suits up from Ace to King on the foundations.
• Columns: build down in alternating colors, so a red 6 goes on a black 7.
• Free cells: each holds one card, any card, until you play it to a column or a foundation.
• Empty columns take any card or ordered run, not just a King.
• Moving runs: strictly, you move one card at a time. Moving an ordered run is a shortcut for passing it through free cells and empty columns, so how many cards you can move depends on how much space you have.
• Foundations are final: once a card goes up, it stays there.

Supermoves: how many cards can you move at once?

Take the number of empty free cells and add one. Then double that for every empty column. The result is the longest run you can move in one go.

• No empty columns: with all four cells free you can move 5 cards, with one free cell just 2.
• One empty column doubles it: four free cells and one empty column let you move 10.
• Two empty columns double it again: one free cell and two empty columns give you 8.

Why the formula works, and the empty column catch

With one free cell you can move two cards: park the top one, move the next, bring the first back. An empty column works as a staging area. You move half the run into it using your cells, move the other half using the same cells, then bring the first half back on top. That's why each empty column doubles your reach.

The catch is moving into an empty column. That column is the destination, so it can't also be a staging area. With four free cells and one empty column you can move 10 cards onto another column but only 5 into the empty one. If a run is too long for your space, the game simply won't move it.

Almost every FreeCell deal can be won

This is FreeCell's famous fact. The Windows version numbered its deals from 1 to 32,000, and every one of them has been solved except deal #11982. Much larger computer searches agree: across billions of deals, roughly one in 80,000 to 90,000 has no solution, which is why you'll often read that about 99.999% of deals can be won.

So when you lose a game of FreeCell, there was almost certainly a way through. One note: deal numbers here come from our own shuffle, so deal #11982 on this site isn't the Microsoft one, and Microsoft deal numbers won't bring up their old layouts.

FreeCell strategy: free cells are a budget

1. Plan before you move. Everything is visible, so find the Aces and twos first and count how many cards sit on top of each. The column hiding the lowest cards is usually where to start.
2. Spend free cells like money. Every card you park cuts how many cards you can move, and with all four cells full you can move only one at a time. Before you use a cell, know how that card is getting out.
3. An empty column beats a free cell. A free cell adds one to your moving power; an empty column doubles it. Clearing a short column early often decides the game.
4. Count before a long move. If you need to shift a run of 7 and your space carries 5, free a cell or a column first instead of breaking the run up and clogging your cells.
5. Don't waste an empty column on one low card. Fill it with a long run or a King and its followers, since nothing ever needs to go beneath a King.
6. Don't bury what you need next. Before moving a run onto a column, check that it doesn't cover the next card a foundation is waiting for.
7. Keep high cards back when they might be needed. Cards can't come back from the foundations, so a 7 sent up early can't later hold a 6 of the other color. Auto-move only sends cards up when nothing could still need them, and you can switch it off.
8. When stuck, undo further back. The mistake that locks a game usually happened several moves earlier, often the move that filled your last free cell. Undo is unlimited, so go back to where you still had room.

Where FreeCell comes from

Paul Alfille wrote the first computer version in 1978 on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois. He took an older game, Baker's Game, where cards build down by suit, and made them build in alternating colors instead. Microsoft has shipped FreeCell with Windows since Windows 95, and its numbered deals made it a puzzle people could compare and argue about by number.