Free Penguin Solitaire Online
Penguin is a FreeCell cousin with seven free cells and a twist: the first card dealt, the beak, decides where every foundation starts. Build same-suit columns, free the beak and send all 52 cards to the foundations. Solitaire Play offers Penguin in your browser for free, with Hint, Undo and a daily challenge, and no download or sign-up.
Official Rules & Scoring
The goal is to move all 52 cards to the four foundations. The deck is dealt face up into seven columns of seven cards. The very first card dealt is the beak, and it sits at the bottom of the first column. The other three cards of the beak's rank do not go in a column: they start their suit foundations right away, and the next card fills the gap, so every column still has seven cards.
- Foundations: each suit builds up from the beak's rank and wraps from King to Ace. If the beak is a 5, every foundation starts with a 5 and ends with a 4. The beak's own foundation stays empty until you free the beak.
- Columns: build down in the same suit, and ranks wrap, so a King can be placed on an Ace. You can move one card or a whole same-suit run, and the run length is not limited.
- Free cells: seven cells each hold one card. Any bottom card of a column can go to an empty cell, and a cell card can go back to a column or to its foundation.
- Empty columns: an empty column takes only the card one rank below the beak, or a same-suit run that starts with it. With a 5 as the beak that card is a 4; with an Ace as the beak it is a King. The status bar shows it as, for example, 5→4.
- Winning: you win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. There is no stock and no redeal.
Strategy & Tips
- Free the beak first. the beak holds back the foundation of its own suit, and it starts at the bottom of a column, so digging it out early matters most.
- Use the free cells, but keep a few empty. seven cells are generous, yet a full set of cells leaves no room to turn a column around.
- Keep same-suit runs together. a run moves as one unit and never needs extra cells, so long runs are cheap to relocate.
- Plan the empty column. it only accepts one specific rank, so decide early which column to empty and which card will fill it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can every Penguin deal be won?
Almost. New games and the daily challenge only use deals that our solver has proved winnable (it found a full winning line within its search limit, and the line was replayed move by move). In our screening, about 99.7% of 8,000 random Penguin deals passed (7,979 of them), and only those are kept. Winnable does not mean easy: the solver plans every move perfectly.
What is the beak?
It is the first card dealt, placed at the bottom of the first column. Its rank is the starting rank of all four foundations and also sets which card may enter an empty column: the one rank below it.
Can I move a whole run at once?
Yes. Any run of cards in the same suit, going down in rank, moves as a unit onto a matching card or into an empty column, whatever its length and however many free cells are empty.
Where are the other solitaire games?
Klondike is on the home page, and FreeCell, Spider, Pyramid, TriPeaks, Golf and Yukon have their own pages.
Want to play better? Read our Penguin strategy guide.