Eight Off Solitaire Strategy Guide
Eight Off is FreeCell's slower, more spacious relative. Every card is face up, there is no stock, and eight free cells give you a lot of room, but columns only build down in the same suit and one card moves at a time. That makes it a game of digging: reach the low cards of each suit before your free cells run out. This guide covers the opening, how to spend free cells, how to treat Kings and empty columns, and the mistakes that lose the most games.
Opening principles
You start with 48 cards in eight columns of six and four cards already in free cells, so four of the eight cells are empty. You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations.
- Find the four Aces first. Note how deep each Ace and 2 is buried. The deepest low card tells you how much digging the deal needs.
- Look for free plays before parking anything. A card from a free cell may fit a column right away, and a bottom card may fit another column in suit.
- Count your empty cells. Four spare cells is your whole budget for the first dig; do not spend them on cards you could place instead.
Using the free cells
Because only one card moves at a time, a free cell is the only way to get past a card that has no home.
- Park cards that will come back soon. A card that can return to a column or a foundation after one or two moves is a cheap parking choice.
- Avoid parking high cards of a suit whose low cards are buried. A Queen in a cell may sit there for most of the game.
- Keep two cells empty when you can. With none empty you cannot dig at all.
Building same-suit chains
Columns build down in suit, so every chain is already in order for the foundation. A chain such as 9-8-7 of spades will never block itself.
- Add to chains that end in a low card. A chain that ends in a 3 will go to the foundation soon after the Ace and 2.
- Remember that only the same suit counts. A card whose same-suit parent is buried has nowhere to go, so it waits at the bottom of a column or in a free cell.
- Do not bury a low card under a higher card of the same suit. The higher card has to move first, and with one card at a time that costs a free cell.
Kings and empty columns
Only a King can go into an empty column. That makes an empty column less powerful than in FreeCell, but a King at the bottom of a column is a very safe place: every other card of its suit can build on it.
- Empty a column when a King is ready to take it. A column with a King at the bottom already starts a full chain.
- A King on top of a buried low card is a problem. It needs a free cell or an empty column to move.
- Do not clear a column just to clear it. An empty column that no King can use is only a place to lose track of cards.
Common mistakes
- Filling free cells early. Cells are the only way to dig, and a full row of cells ends the game.
- Digging the wrong suit. Work on the suit whose Ace is closest to the surface first.
- Forgetting that colours do not matter. Only the suit counts when building a column.
- Assuming an empty column takes any card. In Eight Off it takes only a King.
- Playing on in a dead position. If every move you can make only shuffles cards between cells, use Undo or the Solver to find where the deal went wrong.
How winnable are the deals?
Nearly all random Eight Off deals can be won. In our screening, the solver found a full winning line within its search limit of 200,000 positions for about 99.7% of 12,000 random deals (11,958 of them). That figure is a lower bound, because a solver with a limited search can miss lines. New games and the Daily Challenge only use deals the solver has proved winnable, so a winning line always exists. Winnable does not mean easy: the line can be long.
Practice and play
Play a few deals with one habit: before you park a card in a free cell, say where it will go next. If you cannot answer, look for a different move. Use Undo and the Solver in the menu to compare lines.