FreeCell Solitaire — Play Free Online
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Learn the game
How to play FreeCell
Objective
Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, built Ace to King by suit. Every card is face up from the first moment — nothing is hidden.
Moves
Build tableau columns downward in alternating colors. Park blockers in the four free cells — but every occupied cell shrinks how much you can move at once.
Tips
Plan the whole line before touching a card. Empty cells and empty columns are your only resources — spend them late and win them back fast.
The setup
FreeCell deals one full deck, all 52 cards face up, into eight columns — seven cards in each of the first four, six in each of the last four. Above the table sit eight slots: four free cells on the left, each able to hold any single card, and four foundations on the right, one per suit. There is no stock, no waste, no dealing — everything you will ever have is on the table before your first move.
Legal moves
Tableau columns build downward in alternating colors — red 7 on black 8, black 6 on that red 7 — exactly as in Klondike. Any top card may move to a free cell, and any card (not just a King) may move to an empty column. Foundations climb from Ace to King by suit, and cards on foundations are, in most versions, gone for good. That is the entire rule set; the depth comes from how little slack it gives you.
The supermove formula
Strictly, FreeCell moves one card at a time — sequences travel only by shuttling through free cells and empty columns. Digital versions automate this with the supermove: you can relocate (free cells + 1) × 2empty columns cards as a single unit. With all four cells free, that is five cards; add one empty column and it doubles to ten, two columns and it is twenty. The formula is the game's whole economy in one line: your mobility is a function of the empty space you maintain.
Winning
Clear all 52 cards to the foundations and the game is won — and here FreeCell makes a promise no other classic solitaire can: almost every deal has a winning line. Lose, and the fault is (almost) provably in the play, not the cards. Details on the famous exception below.
The complete guide
FreeCell, the solitaire of pure skill
Every other classic solitaire deals you a mystery: face-down cards in Klondike, forty-four of them in Spider. FreeCell deals you a fact. All 52 cards face up, no stock, no draws — the entire game is visible before your first move, which means the entire game is decidable before your first move. FreeCell is not a card game that involves thinking; it is thinking, wearing a card game's clothes.
That transparency sets the terms. There is no luck to blame and no reveal to hope for. What you get in exchange is the rarest property in solitaire: the game is almost always winnable, by you, today.
What is FreeCell?
FreeCell belongs to the open family of solitaires — games dealt entirely face up — with ancestors going back over a century. Its modern form has an unusually precise origin: Paul Alfille, then a medical student, programmed it in 1978 on PLATO, the pioneering educational computer network at the University of Illinois, generalizing an older game called Eight Off from suit-based to color-based building. PLATO's orange plasma screens hosted the first FreeCell community decades before the web.
The game's second life came when Microsoft shipped FreeCell with Windows 95 (it had appeared earlier in a Win32 test package — the joke was that FreeCell came with a free operating system attached). Its 32,000 numbered deals became a shared universe: every player in the world could attempt deal #617 and compare notes. That numbering spawned one of the earliest internet crowdsourcing efforts, and one deal made history by refusing to fall. The whole arc, from PLATO to Windows, is part of our history of solitaire.
Why (almost) every deal is winnable
FreeCell's defining statistic: roughly 99.999% of deals are solvable. The reason is structural. With no hidden cards and no dealing, nothing random happens after the shuffle — a deal is simply a puzzle position, and solvers can search it exhaustively. Four cells plus flexible empty-column rules turn out to give just enough maneuvering room that a winning line nearly always exists.
The Internet FreeCell Project of the mid-1990s distributed all 32,000 original deals to volunteers, and human players plus solvers eventually cracked every one except deal #11982 — still the canonical "impossible" deal, verified unsolvable by exhaustive search. (Larger modern deal spaces contain a handful of other duds, but the rate stays vanishingly small.)
Sit with what that means for how losses feel. In Spider, a loss might be the deal's fault — a real fraction of deals are dead on arrival. In FreeCell, the winning line existed and you walked past it. Some players find that oppressive; the players FreeCell keeps find it liberating — every loss is a lesson with a correct answer, and win rates above 90% are a matter of care rather than fortune.
Strategy: the discipline of empty space
FreeCell strategy is one principle wearing four hats: empty space is your only resource, and nearly every loss is a story about spending it too early.
- Free cells are precious — treat them as a loan, not a closet. Each occupied cell cuts your supermove capacity, and four occupied cells reduce you to single-card shuffling, which is usually the endgame of a lost position. Before parking a card, know the move that brings it back down. A cell filled without an exit plan is the most common fatal move in the game.
- Plan the whole line before moving. With every card visible, FreeCell rewards the chess habit: read the board, find the aces, trace the sequence that frees them, and only then touch a card. Moves are irreversible in effect even when undo exists — each one narrows the tree. The first minute of looking is the most valuable minute of the game.
- Dig for deep aces first. An ace under six cards is the position's real problem, and everything else is procrastination. Excavate the deepest-buried aces and twos while your cells are still empty and your options widest — the late game with loaded cells is the worst possible time to start a big dig.
- Empty columns beat free cells. A cell holds one card; an empty column holds a sequence and doubles your supermove. When you have a choice, unload onto columns, and think twice before filling an empty column with a King you can never move again — unlike Klondike, any card may go there, so choose one you will want gone.
Vocabulary note: FreeCell discussion leans on terms like cascade, cell, and supermove — the glossary defines them all with examples.
The skill game, next to its rivals
Set the three great desktop solitaires side by side and FreeCell is the outlier in every column that involves chance:
| Game | Hidden cards | Deals winnable | A loss means… |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeCell | None | ~99.999% | A better line existed — find it next time |
| Klondike | 21 at deal | Most, not all | Maybe you, maybe the deal |
| Spider (4 suits) | 44 at deal | A clear majority | Often the deal, sometimes you |
Klondike and Spider are games of judgment under uncertainty — you play the odds, and the odds sometimes play you. FreeCell removes the uncertainty and leaves only the judgment. Which appeals to you is a real question of temperament, and our full comparison takes it seriously: session length, difficulty curves, and which game fits the way you like to think. Players who want a middle path — hidden information but heavy planning — usually land on 2-suit Spider.
Frequently asked questions
Is every FreeCell deal winnable?
Very nearly. Analysis of the classic numbered deals puts the solvable share at roughly 99.999% — of the original 32,000 Microsoft deals, exactly one, deal #11982, has resisted every solver and every human attempt. For practical purposes: if you lost, a winning line existed. That certainty is unique among the major solitaires and it changes the psychology of the game completely.
What is deal #11982?
The famous exception — the one deal among Microsoft's original 32,000 that no solver has ever cracked. It became a rite of passage in the 1990s as the Internet FreeCell Project crowdsourced attempts on every numbered deal; #11982 was the lone unsolved holdout. If a friend challenges you to "an impossible FreeCell deal," this is almost certainly the one.
How many cards can I move at once?
Formally you move one card at a time, but every implementation automates the supermove: (free cells + 1) × 2empty columns cards as a unit. All four cells free and no empty columns lets you move five; free up two empty columns as well and that becomes twenty. If the game refuses to move your sequence, count your free cells — the formula is why.
What are the free cells actually for?
They are a four-card holding bay — parking spots for anything that is in the way. The subtlety is that they are also your move capacity: every occupied cell shrinks the largest sequence you can relocate. Strong players treat cells as a loan to be repaid quickly, not storage; a game with all four cells stuffed is usually a game in its final moves, one way or the other.
Do tableau columns build by suit or by color?
By color, exactly as in Klondike: descending rank, alternating red and black. The differences are that every card is dealt face up, any card may move to an empty column (not just Kings), and there is no stock — the 52 cards on the table are the whole game.
Why did I lose if nearly every deal is winnable?
Because winnable means a winning line exists, not that it is easy to see. Typical player win rates run far below 99% — most losses trace to a hasty first minute: cells filled too early, an ace buried under a casual move, an empty column spent on nothing. FreeCell punishes exactly one thing, moving before thinking, and it does so reliably.
Where does FreeCell come from?
It descends from older open solitaires, but its modern form was defined by Paul Alfille, who programmed it in 1978 on the PLATO educational computer system as a medical student. Microsoft included it with Windows 95, and it became one of the most-played computer games in history. The fuller story is in our history of solitaire.
Is FreeCell harder than Spider or Klondike?
It is harder to play well casually and easier to master seriously. There is no hidden information to blame, so every loss is yours — but for the same reason, study translates directly into wins in a way Spider's face-down cards never quite allow. See our three-game comparison for where each game sits on the luck–skill spectrum.
Does FreeCell have a scoring system?
Nothing standard beyond wins, time, and move count — fitting for a game that is really a puzzle. The measures that matter to serious players are win streaks and solve efficiency. Because nearly every deal is winnable, long unbroken streaks are achievable, and chasing one is FreeCell's equivalent of a high score.
What should I do in the first minute of a FreeCell game?
Nothing — that is the point. Read the whole board first: find all four aces, note what buries them, and identify which columns can be emptied cheaply. Then plan the line that frees the aces without stuffing your cells. One minute of looking before the first move is worth more than any tactic applied after a careless start.