How to play FreeCell

FreeCell is the solitaire of pure skill. All 52 cards are dealt face up into eight columns, so nothing is hidden and nothing depends on a lucky draw. Your tools are a handful of free cells, each able to hold one card, and the empty columns you manage to create. The aim is to move every card onto the four foundations, one suit each, from the Ace up to the King.

Because you can see everything, almost every FreeCell deal can be won. What separates a win from a dead end is planning: which card to park in a cell, which column to clear, and how to keep enough space free to move long runs of cards.

How to play on skill.games

When you open the game, the settings popup appears. Choose a level - Easy (4 cells), Normal (4 cells) or Hard (2 cells) - check your record at that level and press PLAY. The cards fly out into eight columns.

• Moving a card: tap it and it goes to the best place it can: a foundation if that is safe, otherwise onto a column where it fits, then an empty column, and finally a free cell. Tap the same card twice quickly to send it straight to its foundation.
• Dragging: drag a card, or a run of cards, and drop it on a column, a free cell or a foundation. A move that isn't allowed is refused: the cards shake and slide back. If a run is legal but too long for the space you have, a message tells you how many cards can move right now.
• Undo: the UNDO button in the top-right corner takes back your last move, as many times as you like.
• The score line at the top shows your moves, the time and your score.

Once every column is in order - each one a single run going down in alternating colours - the game plays the rest out to the foundations for you. The cards cascade off the table and the results screen shows your moves, your time and your final score, with your statistics for that level.

The menu button in the top-left corner pauses the game, starts a new deal or turns the sound off. Your deal is saved after every move, undo history included, so you can come back later and press CONTINUE. A deal you abandon by starting a new one counts as a loss at its level.

Rules

The layout. All 52 cards are dealt face up into eight columns: the first four get seven cards, the other four get six. Above them sit the free cells (four, or two on Hard) and the four foundations.

Building on the columns. A card can go on a column's top card if it is one rank lower and the opposite colour: a black 7 on a red 8. An empty column takes any card.

Free cells. Each free cell holds one card. Any top card can be put in an empty cell, and a card in a cell can be played back onto a column or a foundation whenever it fits.

The foundations. Each foundation is built up in one suit from the Ace to the King, one card at a time. Cards on the foundations stay there.

Moving several cards. Officially you move one card at a time, but a run of cards in sequence (down in rank, alternating colours) can be moved together when you have enough space to shuffle it across card by card. The longest run you can move at once is (empty free cells + 1) multiplied by 2 for every empty column. With four empty cells and no empty column that is 5 cards; with two cells it is 3; one empty column doubles it. In our version, an empty column you are moving the run into also counts towards the limit.

Scoring. Each card sent to a foundation scores 10 points. Every 30 seconds of play costs 30 points, but the score never goes below zero. A win adds a time bonus of 600,000 divided by the seconds you took. Undoing a move takes its points back, and an undo counts as a move.

Winning. You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations.

Strategy tips

• Free the Aces and Twos first. Look for the low cards buried in the columns and plan how to reach them before you move anything.
• Treat free cells as precious. A cell filled with a card that can't come out soon is a cell lost. Before parking a card, know how it will leave.
• Empty columns are worth more than cells. An empty column doubles the length of run you can move, and it can take a whole run rather than a single card.
• Short columns are the easiest to clear. The four six-card columns are the natural first targets.
• Build long, clean runs. A tidy run down in alternating colours can be moved as a unit later; a column full of mixed cards has to be taken apart card by card.
• Watch your move limit. Before you fill your last cell, check that you can still move the runs you need.
• Plan several moves ahead. With every card visible you can work out whole sequences in your head before touching anything, and undo is always there if a plan doesn't work.

Difficulty levels

• Easy (4 cells): four free cells and a gentler deal, which lifts some low cards (Ace to 6) from deep in the columns towards their tops.
• Normal (4 cells): the classic game: four free cells and a fully random deal. The great majority of deals can be won.
• Hard (2 cells): only two free cells. The longest run you can move with an otherwise full table drops from five cards to three, so every cell and every empty column counts. Many deals are still winnable, but they need careful planning.