FreeCell

The layout

Deal the whole deck face up into eight columns: four of seven cards and four of six. Everything is visible from the start.

Above them sit four empty free cells, each holding one card, and four empty foundations, one per suit.

Goal

Build each foundation from ace to king in a single suit. Get all 52 cards up there and the game is won.

What you can move

• Onto a column: a card goes on one that is one higher and the opposite colour, exactly as in Klondike.
• Into a free cell: any single card. It sits there until you can play it somewhere.
• Onto a foundation: ace first, then up in suit.
• An empty column takes any card, not just a king. This is the big difference from Klondike.

Strictly, you only ever move one card at a time. Moving a run is a shorthand for shuffling cards through the free cells and back.

How many cards you can move at once

The number of cards you can shift as a block is (free cells + 1) × 2 to the power of (empty columns).

With all four cells free and no empty columns, that is five cards. One empty column doubles it to ten. This is why an empty column is worth far more than a free cell, and why filling your last cell early is usually the losing move.

What to do first

• Look at the whole board before moving anything. Nothing is hidden, so a plan is actually possible.
• Find the aces and work out what is buried on top of them.
• Emptying a column is the strongest thing you can do. Aim at the shortest one.
• Keep at least one cell free. A board with all four cells full is usually already lost.
• Do not rush cards to the foundations. A low card is often needed in the columns first.

Why nearly every deal is winnable

Of the 32,000 numbered deals in the original Microsoft set, all but one are solvable, and that one is famously deal 11982. In general, well over 99 in 100 random deals can be won.

So unlike Klondike, losing is nearly always a mistake rather than a bad shuffle. That is either the appeal or the problem, depending on your temperament.

Questions