FreeCell is the solitaire game where every card is dealt face up, so nothing is left to luck: almost every deal can be won if you plan well. Your goal is to move all 52 cards onto four foundation piles, one for each suit, in order from Ace to King.
The rules move one card at a time, but you don't have to. A run of cards in order, like a black 9, red 8 and black 7, can move together as long as there would be room to move it card by card through the free cells and empty columns. The game works this out for you: every empty free cell lets you move one more card, and every empty column doubles the number.
| Empty free cells | Empty columns | Cards you can move |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 4 | 0 | 5 |
| 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 4 | 1 | 10 |
When you move a run into an empty column, that column can't also help with the move, so the limit there is half as many. If a run is too long to move, the game tells you how much room you have.
Aces go up to the foundations as soon as they're free, and 2s as soon as their Ace is up. Higher cards follow on their own once nothing in the columns could still need them: the 5 of hearts goes up by itself once the 4 of hearts and both black 4s are on the foundations. You can send any other card up yourself, by dragging it or tapping it.
Every deal has a number from 1 to 1,000,000, and the numbers match the classic FreeCell that came with Windows: game #1 here is the same deal as game #1 there. The number of the game you're playing is at the top of the screen. To play a particular deal, tap New and enter its number, or tap Restart this deal to try the same game again.
Very nearly. Of the 32,000 deals in the original Windows FreeCell, players have won every one except game #11982, which can't be won. Of the million deals in later versions of Windows, only eight can't be won. Researchers estimate that about 99.999% of all possible deals can be solved. That doesn't make it easy: one careless move can turn a winnable game into a lost one.
Paul Alfille wrote the first computer version in 1978, as a medical student at the University of Illinois, for the PLATO educational computer system. Jim Horne later made the version for Microsoft. It first came out in Microsoft Entertainment Pack Volume 2, and it became famous when it was included with Windows 95.
In Klondike most cards start face down and you turn over cards from a stock, so luck plays a big part. In FreeCell every card is face up from the start and there is no stock. Instead you get four free cells to park cards in, which makes it a game of planning.
Yes, it's free, and there's nothing to download or sign up for. Your current game and your statistics are saved in this browser on this device.
Your game is saved after every move. Open the page again in the same browser and you'll pick up where you left off.
Yes. After your first visit the game works without an internet connection. On a phone, add it to your home screen to open it like an app.