Objective and layout
Play happens across three areas. Eight tableau columns hold the whole deck at the start — the four left-hand columns receive seven cards apiece, the four right-hand columns six. Above the tableau sit four single-card slots, the free cells, and four foundations, one for each suit.
You win by completing all four foundations in ascending suit order. Since no card is ever face-down, the only unknowns in FreeCell are the consequences of your own choices.
Where a card may land
Inside the tableau, cards stack downward in alternating colors: a red 9 belongs on a black 10, a black Jack on a red Queen. Only a card at the bottom of its column (or one waiting in a free cell) is available to move.
An empty column is a wildcard — it accepts whatever card you choose, King or otherwise. That is a sharp departure from Klondike, and it is why open columns dominate expert play.
The free cells
Treat the four free cells as parking spaces: each fits a single card, any card, for as long as you need. A parked card can later rejoin a tableau stack that accepts it or go straight up to its foundation once its suit is ready.
Parking is never free, though — each occupied cell shrinks the largest group of cards you can relocate in one action (see the multiplier rule below), so strong players park late and retrieve early.
Moving runs: the multiplier rule
An ordered, color-alternating sequence can travel between columns as one action. Capacity is pure arithmetic: take your open free cells plus one, then multiply by one more than the number of empty columns you are not landing on.
Two open cells and no empty column carries a run of three; add one empty column and the same position carries six; a second empty column raises it to nine. Landing on an empty column removes that column from the count.
Most lost games trace back to overlooking this number — check it before committing a big transfer.
Winning, undo, and taking cards back
The game ends when all fifty-two cards sit on the foundations, each pile running Ace, 2, 3 … King in a single suit.
StillDeck lets you step backward freely with Undo — including un-playing a card that already reached a foundation — but treat that as a correction tool rather than a tactic: a position that needs foundation cards back on the table usually went wrong several moves earlier.
FreeCell vs. Klondike at a glance
- The full deck is dealt face-up, so nothing depends on a lucky draw.
- Klondike cycles a stock; FreeCell gives you parking spaces instead.
- An open column here takes any card — in Klondike, Kings only.
- Ordered runs relocate in one action when your capacity allows it.
- Skill dominates: just 8 of the first 1,000,000 Microsoft deals are unwinnable.