FreeCell Strategy: 10 Tips to Win More Games

Nearly every FreeCell deal can be won. That's the good news. The challenge is that one careless move early on can box you in twenty moves later. The FreeCell strategy tips below are the habits good players rely on. None of them need a good memory or fast fingers, just a little patience.

If you're still learning how the game works, start with the FreeCell rules.

1. Plan Before Your First Move

FreeCell is unusual among solitaire games: every card is face up from the start. Use that. Before you touch anything, spend a minute scanning the columns. Where are the four Aces? Where are the 2s? Which columns are short and could be cleared quickly?

A good first move usually does one of two things: it frees a low card, or it starts emptying a short column. A move that does neither is often just shuffling cards around.

2. Free the Aces and 2s First

Low cards are the keys to the game. An Ace buried under five other cards holds up its whole suit, and the cards stacked on it can't go anywhere useful until it's free. Look for the column where an Ace or 2 sits closest to the bottom and work on that one first.

When two columns both hide an Ace, choose the one with fewer cards on top. Every card you have to park is a card that uses up space.

3. Keep Your Free Cells Empty

Free cells are wonderful, and that's exactly why they get filled too fast. Each card you park makes your next move harder and shrinks the size of the group you can move at once. With four empty cells you can move five cards together. With none, you can move just one.

A simple rule: before you put a card in a free cell, know how you'll get it out. If you can't see a home for it within the next few moves, look for a different plan.

Rule of thumb: try not to have more than two free cells full at once until you've emptied a column. Keeping two open gives you room to fix mistakes.

4. An Empty Column Beats a Free Cell

Clearing a whole column is one of the best things you can do in FreeCell. A free cell holds one card. An empty column can hold a whole ordered run, and each empty column doubles the number of cards you can move in one go.

So when a column is down to two or three cards, it's often worth a few moves to finish clearing it. And once you have an empty column, don't rush to fill it with a single card. Wait until it lets you do something important, like moving a long run or freeing an Ace.

5. Build Long, Tidy Runs

A column that runs neatly downhill in alternating colors, say black Jack, red 10, black 9, red 8, is easy to manage. You can move it as a group when you have enough space, and it isn't blocking anything underneath it.

A column that is a jumble of unrelated cards is the opposite. Try to put cards where they extend a run rather than starting a new mess. When you have a choice of two columns to place a card on, pick the one that keeps things in order.

6. Put Kings at the Top of Empty Columns

A King can't go on anything in the columns, so if a King is blocking low cards, the best home for it is an empty column. That's also the best place for a run that starts with a King, because nothing will ever need to move it again until it goes to the foundation.

A low card in an empty column, on the other hand, wastes it. A 3 alone in a column can only take a 2 on top.

7. Sending Cards Home Is Usually Safe

In some solitaire games, moving cards to the foundations too early can hurt you. In FreeCell it's usually fine, and most of the time it's exactly right: a card on its foundation is one less card in the way.

The rare exception is a low card you still need as a landing spot. For example, if a red 4 is still sitting in a column, sending both black 5s to the foundations leaves that red 4 nowhere to land except a free cell. Our game's auto-move option only puts cards up when they are safe in this sense, so you don't have to think about it. Undo is there if you send one up too soon by hand.

8. Look Deep in Each Column

It's easy to look only at the bottom card of each column. Get in the habit of reading the whole column, especially the top few cards. A 2 of spades sitting at the very top of a seven-card column will need six cards moved before you reach it. Knowing that early helps you plan where those six cards will go.

9. Don't Fear Undo

Our game has unlimited Undo. Use it like a pencil eraser. If a plan doesn't work out, step back a few moves and try another route. Many expert players test ideas this way. It isn't cheating, it's learning which moves matter.

If you've gone badly wrong, Restart This Deal takes you back to the beginning of the same game so you can try again with what you now know.

10. Ask for a Hint When You're Stuck

The Hint button highlights a useful move and tells you in one line why it helps. It's a good way to spot a move you overlooked. If there are no moves left at all, the hint says so, and you can Undo or start a new deal.

Putting It Together

Here's a simple order to follow on most turns:

1. Put up any card that can safely go to a foundation.
2. Make a move that frees an Ace or 2, or gets you closer to one.
3. Work toward emptying a short column.
4. Extend an ordered run instead of starting a new pile.
5. Use a free cell only when you know how you'll empty it again.

With these habits, you'll find that most deals come out. If you'd like a harder test, try one of the FreeCell variations with fewer free cells. And if you want a change of pace, the same planning skills help in Spider solitaire and classic Klondike.