FreeCell

How to play FreeCell

FreeCell is the thinking player’s solitaire. Unlike most patience games, every single card is dealt face-up from the very start, so there is no luck of the draw and nothing is hidden — the entire puzzle sits in front of you. A full 52-card deck is spread across eight columns, and with four spare “free cells” to park cards in, almost every deal you meet can be solved with careful planning. That openness is exactly what makes it addictive: when you lose, you know it was your plan that failed, not the shuffle. This version deals from a numbered seed so you can replay or share a favourite deal, counts your moves and time for a ranked score, and gives you unlimited undo while you learn the ropes.

The goal

Move all 52 cards onto the four foundations, one per suit, each built upward from the Ace to the King (A, 2, 3 … Q, K). When the last King lands and every foundation is complete, you have won. The fewer moves and the less time you take, the higher your score.

The board

The deck is dealt face-up into eight tableau columns: the first four columns hold seven cards each and the last four hold six, so all 52 cards are on the table. Above the tableau sit two special areas. On one side are the free cells — single-card parking spaces, four of them on Easy and three on Hard. On the other side are the four foundations, one for each suit, where you build the ordered A→K piles that win the game. Nothing is ever face-down and there is no stock pile to draw from — everything you need is visible immediately.

How to move cards

• Tap a card to pick it up, then tap its destination. Tap the same card again to put it back down. The top card of any tableau column, and any card sitting in a free cell, can always be picked up.
• Build the tableau downward in alternating colours: a red six goes on a black seven, a black five goes on a red six, and so on. Any card may be placed on an empty column.
• Each free cell holds exactly one card of any kind. Use it as temporary storage to unbury a card you need, then move that parked card back out when a home appears for it.
• Send cards to the foundations to win. A foundation starts with the Ace of its suit and then accepts the next rank up, same suit (2, then 3, then 4 …), until the King completes it.
• Undo reverses your last move — as many times as you like — so you can explore a line and back out if it dead-ends. Starting a New Deal or entering a deal number begins a fresh game.

The supermove rule

Officially FreeCell only ever moves one card at a time, but shuffling a neat run of cards one by one through the free cells is tedious. So the game lets you move a whole descending, alternating-colour sequence in a single tap — a “supermove” — as long as you actually could have done it the long way. The maximum number of cards you can move together is (free cells empty + 1) × 2 raised to the power of (empty columns). The counter above the board always shows your current limit.

• With no empty free cells and no empty columns you can still move one card: (0 + 1) × 2⁰ = 1. Each empty free cell adds one to the base multiplier, so three empty cells let you move four cards at once: (3 + 1) × 2⁰ = 4.
• Every empty tableau column doubles the total. One empty column with two free cells gives (2 + 1) × 2¹ = 6 cards; two empty columns with two free cells give (2 + 1) × 2² = 12.
• There is a catch: if you are moving into an empty column, that column can’t also be used as a stepping stone, so it doesn’t count in the doubling. Moving onto an empty column is therefore weaker than moving onto a card. The game enforces all of this for you — if a sequence is too long for your current resources, it simply won’t drop.

Winning and scoring

The game ends the instant all four foundations are complete, from Ace up to King in every suit — 52 cards home. A banner shows your move count, your time and your score, and the score is submitted automatically to the leaderboard for the difficulty you played. Your best result on this device is remembered per difficulty, so Easy and Hard each keep their own record. Sign in and your best scores also join the global rankings.

Strategy tips

• Get the Aces and Twos out early. They are usually buried, and freeing them opens the foundations so higher cards have somewhere to go later. Do not over-rush the rest of a suit, though — a card sent home too soon can leave you unable to place its opposite colour.
• Guard your free cells and empty columns like gold. They are your working memory: the more of them you keep open, the longer the supermoves you can make. Filling all your free cells with no plan to empty them is the fastest way to a dead position.
• Work to empty a whole column. An empty column is the most powerful resource on the board — it doubles your supermove length and can hold a long run you are assembling. Columns that start short (the six-card ones) are the easiest to clear.
• Look several moves ahead before you commit. Because nothing is hidden, FreeCell rewards reading the position: trace where each key card must eventually go, and make sure you are not about to trap a low card under a pile you can’t dismantle.
• For a high score, favour tidy, purposeful play over frantic speed. Every move costs a point and every second costs two, so a calm solve in fifty clean moves easily beats a scrambled one in two hundred. Undo freely while planning — it is only your final sequence that matters.

Frequently asked questions