How to Play FreeCell Solitaire
Sit down to FreeCell and the first thing you notice is that every card is already face up. Nothing is buried, nothing is left to a lucky draw and almost any deal can be won if you find the right order to take the cards in. That puts it closer to a puzzle than a gamble, which is exactly why it has such a devoted following. What you actually have to learn is small: how the 4 cells that give the game its name work and how to spend the room they buy you without running out of it.
What you are trying to do
The aim is the 4 foundations you find in most solitaire, one for each suit, each built upward from the Ace to the King. Move all 52 cards onto them and you have won. What sets FreeCell apart is not the goal but the way you reach it, because you can see every card from the start and you are given a little extra room to work in.
The table
FreeCell deals the whole pack face up into 8 columns. The 4 columns on the left hold 7 cards each and the 4 on the right hold 6, so all 52 are spread in front of you with nothing held back and no stock to draw from later. Across the top are 8 single card spaces. The 4 on the left are the free cells. The 4 on the right are the foundations where the suits are built.
The free cells
A free cell holds exactly one card. That is all it does, and it is enough to change the whole game. Any card sitting at the foot of a column can be lifted into an empty cell to get it out of the way, where it waits until you are ready to bring it back. It helps to picture the 4 cells as 4 spare hands. They are what let you take apart a column that would otherwise be locked, and using them well without filling all 4 is most of the skill in FreeCell.
How the cards move
On the tableau you build downward in alternating colors, a red card onto a black one and a black onto a red, each a single rank lower than the card it lands on. That pattern will feel familiar if you have played Klondike. A card also climbs to its foundation the moment the foundation is ready for it, starting with the Ace, then the two of the same suit, on up to the King. One difference stands out early: when you clear a column completely, the empty space will accept any card at all, not only a King.
Moving more than one card
Strictly, FreeCell is a one card at a time game. By the original rules you can only ever pick up a single card. But shifting a tidy run one card at a time, parking each in a cell and putting it back down, is so routine that the game does it for you in a single action, often called a supermove. How many cards you can carry in one move is decided entirely by how much spare room you have.
The rule is short. Count your empty free cells, add 1, then double the result for every empty column you are holding. With all 4 cells free and no empty column that is 5 cards in one move. Two free cells and one empty column comes to 6. This is the reason empty cells and empty columns are not merely tidy; they are the literal measure of how long a run you can move, so they are worth protecting.
Almost every deal can be won
FreeCell has a reputation, and it is a fair one, for being nearly always winnable. The great majority of deals have a solution, far more than in most solitaire, which is exactly why the game is treated as a test of skill rather than a roll of the dice. A small and famous set of deals cannot be solved by anyone, but you will rarely meet one. Every deal you meet here has been checked through to a finish first, so the one on your screen has a way through, and a loss comes down to the order you chose rather than the shuffle. The wider question is covered in is solitaire winnable.
How to win
Because nothing is hidden, FreeCell rewards thinking over luck more than any other game in the family. A few habits carry most of the weight.
Send the low cards up, but with your eyes open
Aces and twos can go to their foundations as soon as you reach them, since nothing in the columns ever needs to sit on them. Higher cards deserve a pause. Push a card up too soon and you may strand the card that wanted to land on it.
Keep your cells empty
Four full cells is a dead end, since you have nowhere left to put anything. Use them freely, but treat a card resting in a cell as a problem still waiting to be solved, not a card filed safely away. The winner is usually the player with the most spare room, not the one who found the cleverest single move.
Value an empty column above an empty cell
A cleared column doubles how many cards you can move and it can hold an entire run rather than a lone card. If you can open one, do, and think twice before you fill it back in.
Read the whole board first
With every card on show, FreeCell punishes the hasty move more than the timid one. The play that looks obvious is often the one that buries a card you will want 3 steps later. Trace a route to the cards you are stuck behind before you move anything at all.
Common questions
How many free cells does FreeCell have?
Four, and each one holds a single card. They are temporary parking, not a second set of foundations, and the trick is to lean on them without letting all 4 fill up at once.
Is FreeCell always winnable?
Almost. Nearly every shuffle can be solved, which is unusual for solitaire, though a rare few deals genuinely cannot be. The deals you are dealt here are all confirmed solvable before they reach you, so the game in front of you can be won, and any loss is on the moves rather than the cards.
What is a supermove?
It is the game moving a run of cards in one action instead of making you shuffle them through the cells by hand. The number you can move is your empty cells plus 1, doubled for each empty column, so spare room directly sets how far a run can travel.
Is FreeCell harder than Klondike?
It asks for more thought, since you can see everything and have to plan, but it is far more forgiving in the long run because almost every deal can be solved. If you like Spider for the planning, FreeCell scratches a similar itch with a shorter game.