FreeCell Rules

The goal of FreeCell is to move all 52 cards onto four foundations, one per suit, each built up from Ace to King. Every card is dealt face up, four free cells hold one card each, and tableau columns build down in alternating colors.

This page sets out every rule, the arithmetic behind multi-card moves, the rules that change from one version to the next, and what our game does in each case. For a shorter walk-through with a worked opening, see how to play FreeCell.

The Layout

FreeCell uses one standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Deal the whole deck face up, left to right, across eight columns, so that the first four columns hold seven cards and the last four hold six. Nothing goes to the cells or foundations at the start, and there is no stock or waste pile.

The last card of each column is the exposed card, and it is the only card in that column you can move. At the start that gives you eight exposed cards and four empty cells to work with. Our deal diagram shows a full layout.

Legal Moves

A move takes one card from the foot of a column or from a free cell and puts it somewhere legal. There are six kinds of move and one thing you can never do:

Aces are low and Kings are high. That has two consequences worth remembering: nothing can be placed on an Ace in the tableau, and a King can never be placed on another card, so a King moves only to a free cell, an empty column, or its foundation. A free cell accepts only an exposed card, never one from the middle of a column.

Moving Several Cards at Once

Strictly, FreeCell moves one card at a time. A run can still travel as a unit when it could be moved card by card through the empty free cells and columns, and every good computer version does that shuffle for you in one step. The most you can move is:

(empty free cells + 1) x 2^{empty columns}

The formula comes from the single moves. With N empty cells you can move N + 1 cards: N go into the cells, the last card moves, and the N come back on top of it. An empty column doubles that, because you can move one full load into the empty column, a second load to the destination, and then bring the first load over.

A four-card move, one card at a time

Say column 1 ends 9 of hearts, 8 of clubs, 7 of diamonds, 6 of spades, column 2 ends with the 10 of spades, column 3 is empty, and one free cell is open. The limit is (1 + 1) x 2 = 4, and these nine single moves carry the run across:

1. 6 of spades to the free cell.
2. 7 of diamonds to the empty column 3.
3. 6 of spades from the cell onto the 7 of diamonds.
4. 8 of clubs to the free cell.
5. 9 of hearts onto the 10 of spades in column 2.
6. 8 of clubs from the cell onto the 9 of hearts.
7. 6 of spades to the free cell.
8. 7 of diamonds onto the 8 of clubs.
9. 6 of spades onto the 7 of diamonds.

Our game makes the same move in one step and counts it as one move.

Moving into an empty column halves the limit

A column that is the destination cannot also serve as temporary storage, so leave it out of the count. The table compares the two cases, counting empty columns before the move:

The longest run that can land on a card is 12, a Queen down to an Ace on a King. Into an empty column the longest is 13, a full King-to-Ace run.

Winning and Losing

You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. There is no losing rule as such: you have lost when no move you can make leads anywhere. That can happen with every cell full, no empty column, and no legal move at all, but it can also happen while legal moves remain, such as a red 5 that can only shuttle between two black 6s.

A position with 12 or fewer cards left can always be won, because 8 columns and 4 cells give every card a space of its own. From a full deal, nearly every game can be won with correct play; the odds of a winnable deal are about 84,000 to 1 in your favor.

Our game never declares a loss. When you are stuck, undo back to a real choice or start a new deal.

Rules That Change Between Versions

The deal, the building rules, and the goal are the same everywhere. These are the points where programs and house rules part company, and what our game does:

Deal numbers mostly carry over between programs. Microsoft FreeCell turned each number into a fixed shuffle, and many programs copy that method, ours included, so a number you read about elsewhere, such as the unwinnable deal #11982, is the same layout here. Our numbered deals run from #1 to #1,000,000.

How Our Game Plays It

• Moving cards: drag a card, or click it and then click where it should go. Click a card higher up a column to move it together with the cards covering it, as long as they form a run.
• Sending cards home: double-click a card, drag it to its foundation, or select it and click the foundation. Nothing goes home on its own.
• Illegal moves: the game refuses them and says why, for example that a run is longer than the space allows.
• Move count: every move counts as one, including a multi-card move. A win shows the total.
• Undo: Ctrl+Z or the Undo button, three per game on the free plan and unlimited with SuitedGames+. N starts a new game and Esc clears a selection.

FreeCell Variants

Our site plays standard FreeCell. These relatives change its cells, its columns, or its building rule, and the win column gives the share of deals that can be won with perfect play, where a published figure exists:

Baker's Game

FreeCell with one change: cards build down in suit instead of alternating colors. A card then has one possible landing card instead of two, and only about three deals in four can be won. Martin Gardner described it in Scientific American in June 1968, and FreeCell is the alternating-color version of it.

Eight Off

One of the oldest games of the family. Eight columns of six cards leave four cards over, which start in four of the eight cells. Building is in suit and only a King can fill an empty column, yet the extra cells make almost every deal winnable.

Seahaven Towers

Ten columns of five cards, with the last two cards in two of the four cells. Building is in suit and only a King, or a run headed by a King, can fill an empty column. A 1988 Macintosh game by Art Cabral made the name popular.

ForeCell (Napoleon in St. Helena)

The closest older relative, from a Swedish patience book of 1945: alternating colors as in FreeCell, but eight columns of six with the last four cards filling every cell, and only Kings in empty columns. Starting with every cell full, on top of the Kings-only rule, cuts the winnable share to about 86%.

Relaxed FreeCell

Standard FreeCell except that any run moves as a unit, however few cells are free. The rule rescues almost every impossible deal: of the 320 impossible deals among the first 25 million, all but four become winnable, #11982 included.

Double FreeCell

Two-deck versions deal all 104 cards and add columns and cells to hold them; one open-source collection uses ten columns and six cells. The layout differs from program to program, so there is no single rule set or win rate to quote. For a two-deck game with an open tableau on our site, try Forty Thieves.

FreeCell Glossary

Alternating colors

The tableau building rule: each card placed on a column must be the opposite color of the card it covers, such as a red 6 on a black 7.

Autoplay

A program sending safe cards to the foundations by itself. Common in computer FreeCell but not part of the card rules. Our game has none, so you send every card home.

Cascade

Another name for a tableau column.

Deal number

A number that picks one fixed shuffle. Microsoft's numbers (1 to 32,000, later 1,000,000) are copied by many programs, ours included: our deal #1 to #1,000,000 is Microsoft's deal of the same number.

Empty column

A column with no cards left. It takes any card or run, and each empty column doubles the number of cards you can move at once.

Exposed card

The last card of a column, the only card in that column that can move.

Foundation

One of four piles, one per suit, built up from Ace to King. Also called a homecell. A card on a foundation stays there.

Free cell

One of four spaces that each hold a single card of any kind. Also called a cell or a reserve.

KingOnly

A harder rule, standard in Eight Off and Seahaven Towers, that lets only a King fill an empty column.

Open solitaire

A solitaire game that deals every card face up, so nothing is hidden. FreeCell is one.

Packing

Building on the tableau: placing a card on a card one rank higher. FreeCell packs in alternating colors; Baker's Game packs in suit.

Rank

A card's value, from Ace (low) to King (high). Nothing can be placed on an Ace in the tableau.

Run

Cards in a column that go down one rank at a time in alternating colors, such as the King of spades, Queen of hearts, and Jack of clubs. Also called a sequence.

Safe card

A card that can go to its foundation without ever being needed on the tableau again: any Ace or 2, or a card whose two opposite-color foundations have reached one rank below it.

Supermove

A multi-card move carried out as one step, standing in for the single-card moves through empty cells and columns that the rules require.

Tableau

The eight columns where the cards are dealt and built.

Worrying back

Moving a card from a foundation back onto the tableau. Standard FreeCell does not allow it, and neither does our game.

Zero-cell deal

A deal that can be won without ever using a free cell. About 2 deals in 1,000 qualify.

Quick Reference