FreeCell Strategy Guide
FreeCell is the solitaire where luck mostly leaves the room. All 52 cards are dealt face up, so every deal is a puzzle you can read before you move. Almost all of them can be solved, which means a loss is nearly always a planning error. This guide shows how to read a deal, how to spend your free cells and columns, and what skilled players do differently.
Opening principles
The deal has eight columns and four free cells, one card per cell. Before your first move, spend a minute reading the whole layout. A good player is already planning many moves ahead.
- Locate the Aces and 2s. The cards that must reach the foundations first set the order of the whole game. Note how many cards sit on top of each Ace.
- Dig toward the Ace with the fewest blockers. If one Ace is under two cards and another is under six, early moves belong on the first.
- Make short, safe moves first. Build downward in alternating colours on cards that are already in good order, and leave the free cells alone until you have to use them.
- Look for a column you can empty. Columns that start with few cards, or whose cards all have somewhere to go, are your candidates.
- Check the Kings. A King at the bottom of a column is a good thing: it never has to move, and you can build on it all game.
Free cells and empty columns
These are your only workspace, and they are not equal. A free cell holds one card. An empty column holds a card and anything built on it, so it is worth far more.
The number of cards you can move at once is (free cells + 1) multiplied by 2 for every empty column, counting only empty free cells. With four empty cells you can move five cards in one go. With one empty column as well, that becomes ten. If the destination is itself an empty column, it does not count towards the doubling. Every occupied cell shrinks the figure, which is why experienced players treat the cells as a loan and repay it quickly.
- Park a card only when it unlocks something better. Before you place a card in a cell, name the card you will uncover with it.
- Do not fill the last cell without a plan. With all four full, one wrong move can leave you with nothing.
- Keep an empty column empty unless a run is ready to move there. It is much easier to use than to rebuild.
Common mistakes
- Filling cells with low cards. A 3 parked in a cell because you were in a hurry can cost you the deal when the 2 of its suit is still buried.
- Burying a card you will need soon. If you place a black 8 on a red 9, check that the red 9 will not stay covered by another run for a long time.
- Sending cards to the foundations too early. Sending a card up is usually good, but a 6 that could host a 5 of the opposite colour may be better where it is. Check what is waiting for it.
- Ignoring the run formula. Many failed moves are simply too big for the current free cells and columns. Count first, then move.
- Playing too fast. There is no clock. The deals that go wrong are usually the ones where you reacted instead of planning.
Advanced techniques
- Plan in reverse. Find the card you want to reach, then work out what must come off it and where each of those cards will go.
- Build a spine. A long alternating run on one column is a stable base. Aim new builds at it so other columns are free to empty.
- Use a cell as a bridge. A single card can sit in a cell for one move to let a run cross, then go straight back to a column.
- Count your outs late. In the endgame, check that for every suit the next card up is accessible, and that no suit is reachable only through a locked pile.
- Replay lost deals. Playing the same deal again teaches more than a new one. The first mistake is usually obvious the second time.
How winnable are the deals?
FreeCell is famous for being almost always winnable. The best known data point is the Microsoft numbered deal set: of the 32,000 numbered deals, only one, number 11982, has no solution. If you are stuck, the problem is probably in your plan, not in the deal.
In our own solver runs, the solver proved 94.2% of random deals winnable within its search budget. That is a lower bound: it is the share the solver could prove, not the share that can be won. Solitaire Play deals only from games the solver has already won and replayed, so every new FreeCell game and Daily Challenge here has a winning line. Hint shows a move that keeps the deal winnable, and Undo is unlimited.
Practice and play
FreeCell rewards slow thinking. Take the first minute to read the deal, choose which Ace to reach first, and only then move a card. When you finish, think about how many free cells you needed, and aim to need fewer next time. A useful drill is to play a deal while forbidding yourself the last free cell: it forces you to find the column you could have emptied instead, and that habit carries straight into harder deals.