FreeCell Rules

FreeCell is a one-pack patience game where every card is visible from the start. It is less about luck and more about planning, which is why many players think it is the best solitaire game of all.

🃏 Play it now: open FreeCell and try the classic deals 1 to 32,000.

The layout

• Tableau: all 52 cards dealt face up into eight columns: four columns of 7 cards and four of 6.
• Free cells: four spaces (top left). Each can hold one card of any kind.
• Foundations: four spaces (top right), one per suit, built from Ace to King.

Moving cards

• The top card of any column, or a card in a free cell, can be moved.
• On the tableau, build down in alternating colours: a red 5 on a black 6.
• Any card can be moved into an empty column (unlike Klondike, where only Kings can).
• Any card can be placed in an empty free cell.
• Foundations are built up in suit, Ace first.

Moving several cards (supermoves)

Officially you move one card at a time. But a run of cards in correct order can be moved together if it could be done one card at a time through the free cells and empty columns. The maximum is:

(empty free cells + 1) × 2^{empty columns}. With 3 empty free cells and no empty column you can move 4 cards; with 1 empty free cell and 2 empty columns, 8. When you move into an empty column, that column doesn't count.

Winning

Move all 52 cards to the foundations. Once the remaining cards are in order, Cheettukali finishes the game for you.

Numbered deals

The FreeCell in Windows numbered its deals 1 to 32,000, each made by the same random-number formula. Cheettukali uses the identical formula, so the deal numbers match. All of these deals can be won except one: #11982.

FreeCell was created by Paul Alfille in 1978 on the PLATO computer system and became famous through Microsoft Windows in the 1990s.

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