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Everything you need to know about FreeCell solitaire, from basic gameplay to advanced topics.
FreeCell is a solitaire card game played with a standard 52-card deck. All cards are dealt face-up into eight tableau columns, and the player uses four temporary storage spaces (the "free cells") to maneuver cards onto four foundation piles, built by suit from Ace to King. It is distinguished from most other solitaire games by the fact that nearly every deal is solvable.
Nearly every game is solvable, but not all. Of the original 32,000 deals in Microsoft FreeCell, only one -- Game #11982 -- is known to be unsolvable. When the numbering was extended to 1,000,000 deals, eight unsolvable games were identified. Statistically, approximately 99.999% of randomly dealt games have a solution.
In Klondike (the classic solitaire most people know), many cards start face-down and there is a stock pile to draw from, introducing a significant element of luck. In FreeCell, all 52 cards are face-up from the start and there is no stock pile. This makes FreeCell almost entirely a game of skill -- you can see every card and plan accordingly.
The four free cells are temporary holding spaces. Each can store exactly one card. You use them to temporarily move cards out of the way so you can access cards buried deeper in tableau columns. Keeping free cells empty is a key strategy because each empty cell increases the number of cards you can move in a single operation.
Technically, FreeCell rules only allow moving one card at a time. However, most digital versions (including ours) allow you to move an ordered sequence of cards as a single action, provided there are enough empty free cells and empty columns to accomplish the move one card at a time. This is called a "supermove."
The formula is: (1 + empty free cells) x 2^(empty columns). With no empty cells or columns, you can only move 1 card. With all 4 free cells empty and 1 empty column, you can move (1 + 4) x 2 = 10 cards at once.
In the traditional rules, cards placed on foundations cannot be moved back. Some digital versions allow it, but purists consider the foundation move to be permanent. This is why experienced players are cautious about moving mid-range cards to the foundation too early.
Any card or valid sequence of cards can be placed in an empty tableau column. Unlike Klondike, there is no restriction to Kings only. This makes empty columns extremely versatile and valuable in FreeCell.
You are stuck when there are no legal moves available: all free cells are full, no top card can be placed on another tableau column or foundation, and there are no empty columns. In digital versions, the game will typically notify you when no moves remain.
Keep your free cells empty whenever possible. Every occupied free cell reduces your flexibility. The best players rarely have more than two free cells occupied at any given time. Think of free cells as a lending library, not permanent storage.
Yes, Aces should always go to the foundation immediately since they have no tableau building value. Twos can also be moved up safely in most cases. For higher cards, be more cautious -- a card on the foundation cannot be used for tableau building.
Beginners typically win 40-60% of games. Intermediate players reach 75-85%. Expert players can achieve win rates above 95%, with some dedicated players maintaining 99%+ win rates over thousands of games. Since nearly all deals are solvable, any loss is theoretically avoidable with perfect play.
The modern version of FreeCell was created by Paul Alfille in 1978 while he was a medical student at the University of Illinois. He programmed it on a PLATO mainframe computer system. The game became widely popular when Microsoft included it in Windows 95 and every subsequent version of Windows.
Jim Horne, a Microsoft employee, was a fan of the game and wrote a Windows version of FreeCell, which was first included in Win32s as a test application and then bundled with Windows 95. The inclusion with Windows introduced FreeCell to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.