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FreeCell Rules: How to Play FreeCell Solitaire

FreeCell is a solitaire game for one player with a single 52-card deck, all dealt face up. You build four piles, one for each suit, from Ace up to King, and you have four “free cells” to park cards along the way. Nothing is hidden, so it’s a game of planning rather than luck: almost every deal can be won.

Play FreeCell while you learn Print the rules

FreeCell at a glance

Setting up with a real deck

1. Take out the jokers and shuffle the 52 cards.
2. Deal every card face up, left to right, into eight columns. Overlap the cards so you can read each one. The first four columns end up with 7 cards, the other four with 6.
3. Above the columns, leave room for four free cells on the left and four foundations on the right. With real cards these are just empty spaces on the table.

The card at the bottom of each column (the one you can see all of) is the one you can play. Below, “the top card” of a column means that card.

The rules

• Columns: build down in alternating colors. A red 6 goes on a black 7, a black 6 on a red 7: 6♥︎ on 7♣, then 5♠ on the 6♥︎.
• Free cells: any top card can go into an empty free cell. Each cell holds one card. A card in a cell can come back out to a column or a foundation at any time.
• Empty columns: when a column is empty, any card can go there, not just a King. So can an ordered run, within the limit explained below.
• Foundations: each one starts with an Ace and is built up in the same suit: A♦︎ 2♦︎ 3♦︎ and so on to the King.
• One card at a time: strictly, you move one card per move. Moving a run of cards is a shortcut for moving them one by one through the free space, which is why its length is limited.

In strict FreeCell a card that reaches a foundation stays there. Our game lets you take one back down onto a column if you need it, as some other computer versions do.

How many cards you can move at once

This is the rule people ask about most. An ordered run (alternating colors, each card one lower) can move as a group only if you could have moved it one card at a time, using the empty free cells and empty columns as stepping stones. That gives a simple formula:

cards you can move = (empty free cells + 1) × 2^{empty columns}

Moving into an empty column? Then that column is the destination, not a stepping stone, so count one empty column fewer. With 2 free cells and 1 empty column you can move 6 cards onto another card, but only 3 into the empty column.

Our game does the counting for you: tap a card inside a column and the whole run moves if there’s room. If there isn’t, it simply won’t move, and the fix is to empty a free cell or a column first.

A long move, step by step

Say you have 2 empty free cells and 1 empty column, and you want to move this run of six cards

9♠ 8♥︎ 7♣ 6♦︎ 5♠ 4♥︎

onto the 10♥︎ in another column. The formula says (2 + 1) × 2 = 6, so it fits. Here are the single moves behind it:

1. 4♥︎ and 5♠ go into the two free cells; 6♦︎ goes into the empty column.
2. 5♠ goes back onto the 6♦︎, then 4♥︎ onto the 5♠. Three cards now sit in the spare column, and both cells are empty again.
3. 8♥︎ and 7♣ go into the free cells; 9♠ moves onto the 10♥︎.
4. 8♥︎ goes onto the 9♠, then 7♣ onto the 8♥︎.
5. Finally, the three cards in the spare column come over the same way: two through the cells, then the 6♦︎, then the other two on top.

Fifteen single moves, and the empty column is empty again at the end. With real cards you do it this way; on a computer one tap does the lot.

Winning and safe moves home

You win when all four foundations are complete, Ace to King. You lose when no move is left that helps, which is rare if you plan ahead.

Don’t send every card home the moment you can. A low card on a foundation can no longer hold a card of the other color in the columns. A card is safe to move home once both foundations of the opposite color have reached one rank below it: the 5♥︎ is safe once the black 4s (4♠ and 4♣) are home. Aces and 2s are always safe. Our game moves safe cards home for you (you can switch that off in the Menu).

Tips for beginners

• Look before you move. Find the four Aces and the 2s first, and see how deep they are buried. That tells you which columns to dig into.
• Keep free cells empty. Every full cell shrinks the runs you can move. Use a cell when it gets you somewhere, and empty it again soon.
• Empty a column early. An empty column doubles how many cards you can move, so it’s worth more than a free cell. Short columns are the quickest to clear.
• Build long ordered runs. A tidy run of alternating colors can be moved as a block later; a jumble can’t.
• Kings need a home. A King can only sit at the top of a column, so plan an empty column for it before it blocks the cards under it.
• Count before a big move. Use the formula above, so you don’t start a long move you can’t finish.

Mistakes to avoid

• Filling all four free cells. With every cell full and no empty column, you can move only one card at a time, and the game often locks up.
• Spending an empty column on one card without a plan for what comes next.
• Breaking up a long run to get at one card, when emptying a cell first would let the whole run move.
• Rushing cards home. See the safe-move rule above.

Numbered deals

Each FreeCell deal has a number, and the same number always gives the same layout. The numbering comes from the Windows version of FreeCell, which first offered deals 1 to 32,000 and later went up to 1,000,000. Of the original 32,000, only deal #11982 is known to be impossible.

Our game uses the same numbers, from 1 to 1,000,000: choose “Play a numbered deal” in the Menu to replay a famous deal or play the same game as a friend. For random deals, “Only deal games that can be won” has the computer check that a deal can be won before you get it, and the Hint button works out a winning line from wherever you are.

FreeCell itself goes back to 1978, when Paul Alfille wrote the first computer version; Windows made it famous in the 1990s.

Games like FreeCell

• Baker’s Game: the older game FreeCell grew out of. Same layout, but you build down in the same suit, which makes it noticeably harder.
• Eight Off: eight free cells, four of them filled at the start. Build in suit; only a King can fill an empty column.
• Seahaven Towers: ten columns of five and four free cells, two filled at the start. Build in suit; only a King can fill an empty column.
• Klondike, the classic solitaire, is the opposite kind of game: most cards start face down and luck matters more.

Common questions