FreeCell deals every card face up and gives you four open cells, so a hand is a puzzle you can reason out rather than a gamble. Play FreeCell free in your browser — no download, no account.
How You WinSend all fifty-two cards to the four foundations, each built up in suit from ace to king, using the tableau and four single-card cells as your only workspace.
- Layout
- 8 columns · all 52 cards face up · 4 free cells
- Deals
- Microsoft numbering · #11,982 excluded as unsolvable
- Move size
- (free cells + 1) × 2^(empty columns)
FreeCell Setup: Eight Columns, Four Cells, Four Foundations
- Tableau: all fifty-two cards face up in eight columns — seven cards each in the first four, six each in the last four. Nothing is hidden at any point in the game.
- Free cells: four single-card slots in the top-left corner. Any playable card can be parked in one, and it can come back out to the tableau or go up to a foundation.
- Foundations: four piles in the top-right corner, one per suit, each built from ace to king. Foundations are one-way here — a card that goes up does not come back.
- There is no stock and no waste. Everything you will ever get is already on the table, which is what makes FreeCell a puzzle rather than a gamble.
Complete Rules
- Fifty-two cards are dealt face up into eight columns: four of seven cards and four of six. There is no stock and nothing is ever hidden.
- Tableau columns build downward in alternating colours. A red seven takes a black six, exactly as in Klondike.
- Each of the four cells holds one card of any rank. A card in a cell can go back to the tableau or up to a foundation at any time.
- Foundations build upward in suit from ace to king, and cards never come back down.
- An empty column accepts any card or any movable run, not only a king.
- Strictly, only one card moves at a time; a multi-card move is shorthand for shuttling cards through empty cells and columns. The limit is therefore (free cells + 1) × 2^(empty columns).
- A column that is the destination of the move does not count toward that doubling, because it stops being empty as soon as the first card lands.
- The deal is won when all four foundations reach the king. Because nothing is hidden, a deal is lost only when no legal move improves anything — the game does not end on its own.
FreeCell Variants and the Classic Numbered Deals
- This table plays standard FreeCell: four cells, eight columns, alternating-colour stacking. It is the version bundled with Windows since 1991 and the one nearly every implementation means by the name.
- The deal numbering is the classic Microsoft one, so deal 617 here is deal 617 everywhere else. That matters: published solutions, forum discussions and personal bests are all keyed to those numbers.
- Deal 11,982 is left out because it is the one deal in the classic 32,000 proven unsolvable. Every other numbered deal can be won.
- Widely played relatives change the cell count or the stacking rule — Baker's Game requires the same suit instead of alternating colours, Eight Off gives eight cells and Seahaven Towers rearranges the columns. They are not offered here; this table sticks to the standard game.
Your First Game
- Get the aces out first, then the twos. Unlike Klondike this is almost always right, because foundations are one-way and low cards have no use as landing spots.
- Keep at least one cell free. Cells are your move capacity, not storage; filling all four turns every multi-card relocation into a single-card crawl.
- Empty a column early if you can. An empty column doubles how much you can move and is worth more than any single well-placed card.
- Look for the buried aces before planning anything. A deal usually revolves around the deepest ace, and everything else is preparation for digging it out.
- Undo is free and unlimited. FreeCell rewards exploring a line for six or eight moves and then reversing it — that is how the game is meant to be learned.
Practical Strategy
- Plan the whole sequence before the first move of it. A relocation that runs out of cells halfway leaves your cards worse placed than when you started.
- Treat cells as a budget you spend and get back. Any card you park must have a place to return to; a cell holding a card with nowhere to go is a cell you have lost.
- Do not race all four suits up evenly. Holding back a red four while black threes still need a landing spot is often the difference between a smooth line and a dead one.
- The order of the columns is a resource. Long alternating runs are mobile; broken columns with high cards over low ones of the same colour are the ones to dismantle first.
- When you are stuck, count backwards from the card you need rather than forwards from the move you want. FreeCell positions are usually solved by identifying the one blocked card and working out what has to move for it.
Winning and Special Rules
- This table uses the Microsoft deal numbering, which is what almost every FreeCell implementation and every published solution uses. Deal 617 here is deal 617 everywhere else.
- Deal 11,982 is excluded rather than silently reshuffled, because it is the single deal in that range proven unsolvable and it makes a useful correctness fixture for us.
- Because all information is public, nothing about a FreeCell deal is ever unknowable — the position you can see is the whole problem, and the solver that vets the numbered deals works on exactly the same information you do.
- The multi-card move limit is computed and enforced exactly, including the rule that the destination column does not count toward the doubling. Implementations disagree about that detail; ours follows the standard convention.
- Foundations are strictly one-way in FreeCell, unlike Klondike where a card can be pulled back down.
Common Mistakes
- Filling all four cells. It looks like progress and is the single most common way to lose a FreeCell deal, because your move capacity drops to one card.
- Sending mid-rank cards to the foundations too early. A five that leaves the tableau takes a landing spot for two black fours with it.
- Filling an empty column with the first available card. An empty column is worth two cells; spending it on a card with nowhere better to be is a bad trade.
- Starting a long relocation without counting capacity. The move will simply be refused, or worse, it will succeed and strand the cards you shuttled.
- Blaming the deal. Every deal here is winnable, so a loss is always a line you did not find — which is exactly what makes the game worth replaying.
How Difficult Is FreeCell?
By win rate, FreeCell is the easiest game in this group and by a wide margin: of the classic 32,000 numbered deals, exactly one is unwinnable. Almost everything you are dealt can be beaten by someone who plays it correctly.
By skill demand it is the hardest of the six. Nothing is hidden, so there is no luck to absorb a mistake and nothing to wait for. Where Klondike and Spider mix judgement with chance, FreeCell is judgement alone.
That combination is unusual and it changes how the game feels. A loss is unambiguous information: the deal was solvable, so the line existed and you did not find it. Replaying the same deal number is a genuine second attempt at the same problem, not a new roll of the dice.
In practice, difficulty concentrates in a handful of deals. Most numbered deals fall quickly once the aces are dug out; a small tail of them are hard enough to be discussed by name in the FreeCell community, deal 1,941 being the most cited.
FreeCell FAQ
Are all FreeCell deals winnable?
Essentially yes. Of Microsoft's classic 32,000 numbered deals, exactly one — number 11,982 — has been proven unsolvable. This table uses that same numbering and leaves 11,982 out, so every deal you are given can be won.
How many cards can I move at once?
As many as (free cells + 1) × 2^(empty columns). With four empty cells and no empty columns that is five cards; one empty column doubles it to ten. Moving into an empty column does not count that column toward the doubling.
Is FreeCell easier than Klondike?
It is far more winnable and considerably harder to play well. Nothing is hidden, so there is no luck to blame and no information to wait for — every loss is a line you could have found.
What goes in a free cell?
Any single card, from the top of a column or from another cell. A cell holds exactly one card and blocks nothing else, but every occupied cell shrinks how large a stack you can relocate.
What is the history of FreeCell?
Paul Alfille wrote the first computer version in 1978 on the PLATO system while a medical student at the University of Illinois, adapting the older Baker's Game by loosening its same-suit stacking to alternating colours. Microsoft shipped it with Windows from 1991, and the 32,000 numbered deals from that release are still the reference set players use today.
Can I put a card back from a foundation?
No. In FreeCell foundations are one-way. That is why sending a card up too early is a real mistake here in a way it is not in Klondike.