How to play FreeCell: rules and tips to win

The FreeCell rules in plain words, how moving several cards works, and the habits that win games, each with a small example.

FreeCell is solitaire with every card face up. You win by getting all four suits home, each one in order from ace to king. Because you can see every card from the start, you can plan a whole game before you move.

The FreeCell rules

The cards are dealt into eight columns. Only the last card in a column can move, and it has three places to go.

It can go onto a card one higher in the other colour. It can go into one of the four free cells, which hold one card each. Or it can go home, if its suit is ready for it. Any card can also go in an empty column.

A red 6 on a black 7, and a red 8 on a black 9. Colours alternate and ranks go down.

Moving several cards

Cards in order can move together, but only if you have room. The rule is one more card than your empty free cells, doubled for each empty column. With two empty cells you can move three cards, and with an empty column as well you can move six.

The 9, 8 and 7 can move onto the red 10 together, if you have two empty free cells.

Find the aces first

Before you move anything, find the four aces and twos. The cards above them are your first job. A low card buried deep in a column often decides the whole game.

The ace of hearts is under three cards. Moving those is the first job in this column.

Keep your free cells open

Free cells fill up fast, and a game with full cells has very few moves left. Use a cell when it uncovers something you need, and plan how that card will leave it again.

Clear a column

An empty column beats a free cell. It holds a long run where a cell holds one card, and each empty column doubles how many cards you can move together. Pick the shortest column with the fewest high cards and work on clearing that one.

Put kings at the top

A king can’t sit on anything, so the best place for one is the top of an empty column. Every run you build on it stays out of the way for the rest of the game.

Don’t rush cards home

A card that’s home can’t hold anything for you. A low card may still be useful in a column, as a place to put the next card down. On Owlpuzzles, cards that nothing can need any more go home by themselves.

When you get stuck

Undo is always there, so go back to the last point where you had a free cell or a choice to make. If you can’t see a way on, the Hint button shows the next move, though it costs the Flawless mark.

Play today’s FreeCell deal, or try the FreeCell levels from easy to hard.