Home / FreeCell rules

FreeCell Rules, Setup and Strategy

A short rulebook, a table for the one rule everyone gets wrong, and the habits that turn a stuck game into a win.

FreeCell has no stock and no face-down cards, so there is nothing to guess. Every deal is a puzzle that you can see in full. When you are ready, play FreeCell.

Setup

• One deck, 52 cards, all dealt face up into eight columns.
• Four columns start with 7 cards and four with 6.
• Four free cells sit at the top left. They start empty.
• Four foundations sit at the top right. They also start empty.

The goal

Build each of the four foundations from Ace up to King in a single suit. When all 52 cards are there, you win.

What you can do

• Build in the columns: down in alternating colours, so a black 7 goes onto a red 8.
• Use a free cell: park any one card in an empty cell. It can come back out to a column or a foundation when it fits.
• Fill an empty column: any card, or any run you can move, can go into a column with no cards.
• Send cards up: a card goes to its foundation when it is the next one in that suit.

How many cards can you move at once?

You can only move one card at a time by hand, but the game lets you move a whole run, as if you had shuffled the cards through your free cells and empty columns to do it. The longest run you can move is:

(free cells + 1) × 2^{empty columns}

Here is that as a table, for the common cases. When the column you are moving into is the empty one, it does not count as a stepping stone, so use one fewer empty column.

This table explains most of the strategy. Free cells and empty columns are not just storage: every one you fill makes your runs shorter, and every empty column doubles them.

Strategy

1. Find the Aces and 2s first. Cards that are buried under long columns hold up the whole game. Plan how to dig them out before you do anything else.
2. Keep free cells empty. Park a card only when it unlocks something. A full cell row cuts your runs to a single card.
3. Make an empty column early, and be slow to fill it. One empty column can be worth more than two free cells.
4. Plan several moves ahead. All the cards are visible, so you can work out a sequence before you touch anything. Use Undo to test it.
5. Do not rush cards to the foundations. A card on the table can still hold a run. Send one up only when it frees something, or it is clearly not needed.
6. Build long runs on purpose. A long run of cards in order is something you can move later, as long as you have the room.

Common mistakes

• Filling all four free cells with cards that do not help.
• Moving a card to a foundation that you needed as a base for a run.
• Filling the first empty column with the first card that fits.
• Ignoring a column that has a low card buried at the bottom.

Auto-play

When a card can no longer be of use on the table, the game sends it to its foundation for you. This saves clicks and never harms a game. You can switch it off in Settings.

More from here

Play FreeCell and watch the leaderboard on the FreeCell leaderboard. Compare it with other games in types of solitaire, or read the rules of the others on solitaire rules.