How to Play FreeCell

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

FreeCell is a single-player card game played with a standard 52-card deck. Unlike many solitaire games, almost every deal is solvable with careful thinking, which makes it uniquely satisfying. All cards are dealt face-up from the start, so the puzzle is entirely one of planning and sequencing rather than luck.

It is played at a table with a physical deck or, just as commonly, on a screen. Its appeal lies in the tension between limited free cells and a board that is always fully visible: you can see exactly what needs to happen, the challenge is working out how to make it happen.

A little history

FreeCell's documented history begins with a two-deck variant called Eight Off, described in the 1960s, and a closer ancestor published by Martin Gardner in his Scientific American column in 1968 under the name Baker's Game. The single-deck version recognisable today as FreeCell was popularised by Paul Alfille, who programmed it for the PLATO computer system in 1978. Its origins before that point are unclear. The game reached a mass audience in the early 1990s when it was included with a widely distributed PC operating system, after which it became one of the most played solitaire variants in the world.

Setting up

1. Remove any Jokers from the deck so you have exactly 52 cards.
2. Deal all 52 cards face-up into eight columns across the table. The four leftmost columns receive seven cards each; the four rightmost columns receive six cards each.
3. Leave space above the columns for four free cells on the left and four foundation piles on the right. Both areas start empty.
4. Ensure every card in every column is visible. No card should be hidden.

How to play

1. On your turn you may make one of three types of move: move a card to a free cell, move a card to a foundation pile, or move a card onto another tableau column.
2. Only the bottom card of each tableau column (the last card dealt, face-up and fully exposed) is available for play.
3. Free cells: any single available card may be placed into an empty free cell. Each free cell holds exactly one card. Cards in free cells remain available for play on future moves.
4. Foundation piles: move an Ace to an empty foundation to start it. Thereafter, cards must be added in ascending order (Ace, 2, 3 ... King) and must all be the same suit. Once on a foundation, a card is out of play.
5. Tableau building: place an available card onto another tableau column only if it is one rank lower than the card it covers and is the opposite colour. For example, a black 7 may be placed on a red 8.
6. Moving sequences: strictly speaking, only one card moves at a time. However, a common agreed convention (see Fine Points) allows you to move a sequence of correctly built cards as a block, provided you have enough empty free cells and empty columns to support the move.
7. An empty tableau column may receive any single available card or, under the block-move convention, any valid sequence.
8. The game continues with no time limit. You may pause at any point. There is no reshuffling or redealing.

Winning and scoring

You win by moving all 52 cards onto the four foundation piles, each pile containing one complete suit built in ascending order from Ace to King. When all four foundations show a King on top the game is complete. There is no points system in the standard game: it is simply won or lost. Analysts have established that approximately 99.999% of the roughly 8 x 10^67 possible deals are solvable, though a small set of deals (including the well-documented Deal 11982 in certain numbered-deal implementations) have been proven unsolvable. If the board reaches a state where no legal move remains and the foundations are incomplete, the game is lost.

The fine points

The most common rules dispute concerns moving sequences of cards as a single block. In strict one-card-at-a-time play, a sequence can only be relocated if you have enough free cells and empty columns to route each card individually. The practical convention, widely accepted in physical and digital play, is to calculate the maximum moveable sequence length as (1 + number of empty free cells) multiplied by 2 to the power of the number of empty tableau columns, and allow the whole sequence to move if it fits within that limit. Both approaches are legitimate; agree on which you are using before you start.

A second dispute arises over whether cards placed on foundations can be moved back to the tableau. The standard ruling is that foundation cards are permanent and cannot be retrieved. Some players allow retrieval as a house rule, but this significantly reduces the difficulty and is not considered standard play.

How to win more often

• Clear a free cell as soon as possible after using it. Cells that stay blocked rob you of flexibility exactly when you need it most.
• Work towards emptying one tableau column early. An empty column acts as a large temporary free cell and dramatically increases the number of sequences you can shift.
• Build foundations evenly. If one suit races ahead, cards of the other suits pile up in the tableau with nowhere useful to go.
• Before moving a card to a free cell, check whether it can go directly onto a foundation or legally onto the tableau. Free cells are for cards that genuinely have no other home right now.
• Look several moves ahead before committing. Because all cards are visible, FreeCell rewards planning over reaction. Identify which buried cards are blocking your foundations and trace the chain of moves needed to expose them.

Variations

Baker's Game

Identical layout to FreeCell but tableau building is by suit rather than by alternating colour. A card may only be placed on another card of the same suit that is one rank higher. This constraint makes the game considerably harder and a meaningful proportion of deals become unsolvable. It is regarded as the direct predecessor of modern FreeCell.

Eight Off

Eight Off uses eight free cells instead of four, and deals the cards into eight columns of six with four cards set aside individually at the start. Tableau building follows suit (same suit, descending), as in Baker's Game. The extra free cells make it more manageable than Baker's Game while still being distinct from standard FreeCell.

Double FreeCell

Played with two standard 52-card decks shuffled together, giving 104 cards. The tableau is expanded to ten columns and the free cells are increased to six. Eight foundation piles must be completed, two per suit. The extra cards and columns extend the play time substantially and require the same logical approach applied to a much larger board.

SuperMove FreeCell

Standard FreeCell rules throughout, but the block-move convention is made explicit and formal rather than optional. Players are required to calculate the maximum moveable sequence length before each move and may not exceed it. This variant is useful for teaching the underlying logic of free cell capacity and is a clean way to resolve the most common rules dispute before it arises.

FreeCell: frequently asked questions