Freecell Solitaire is a very popular game made famous by Microsoft. Freecell is included in Windows and is considered by many to be a classic solitaire game. Because you get to see ALL the cards from the start, there is no luck involved, making Freecell one of the few solitaire games that relies entirely on player skill.
Freecell is quite a difficult game, but despite that, all deals (except deal number
11982) are creditworthy in the 32000 offerings in the Microsoft version.
USE IMMEDIATE CELLS
The key to ending Freecell is judicious use of freecells. They should be used as
temporary storage – just store cards in them for a short time to help you move around
longer sequences around.
For example, suppose you have a column with the following (taken from deal 14396)
5 Hearts
Ace Spades
Ace Hearts
4 Clubs
In this situation, it is okay to move the 4 of Clubs to a free cell, because we know
that right after that, we can move the two Aces to the base, and then move
the 4 of Clubs returns from the free cell to the 5 of Hearts. Look how the freecell was
only used temporarily?
SAFE MOVEMENT
There are certain moves that you can do at any time in Freecell and know they won’t.
“catch” you later in the game. You can move the Aces (and the deuces when they can
played), at any time, since no other card depends on them. For the other cards, you
you can safely move them to the foundation if the cards are one less in rank, otherwise
color, they are already in the foundation. For example, you can safely move the 5 of
Diamonds, if the 4 blacks have already moved to the base.
The best Freecell games will automatically do these safe moves for you, so you can
focus on the moves that matter, instead of having to do them manually
inconsequential movements.
THE NEED TO EMPTY COLUMNS
Your first goal in Freecell is to empty a column.
Why is this?
Because an empty column allows you to move longer sequences. the size of
the sequence you can move in Freecell is based on the number of freecells available
and empty columns. The more empty cells and columns you have, the longer
sequence is that it can be moved.
The formula to know how many cards you can move is:
(number of empty freecells + 1) * 2 ^ (num empty columns)
For the less mathematically inclined, here is a table showing how many cards
can move in a few different scenarios…
Empty Freecells Empty Columns Card Sequence Length
0 0 1
1 0 2
2 0 3
3 0 4
0 1 2
1 1 4
2 1 6
3 1 8
0 2 4
1 2 8
2 2 12
3 2 16
As you can see, empty columns are particularly valuable as they allow you to move
considerably longer sequences. The moment you have two free columns (particularly
with two or more free freecells), you can move very long sequences, and the game is
usually pretty easy to complete from there.
HOW TO EMPTY COLUMNS
So what is the easiest way to empty a column?
Start by emptying the files that don’t have any kings. A column with a king
it cannot be emptied initially, because the King has nowhere to go.
Don’t make moves just because you can. Have some mini plan in mind, and just
Move the cards if they help empty the column you’re pointing at.
Another popular strategy is to go straight to throwing the Aces, and then the
2 etc This strategy is easier and requires less thought. It will work for the easiest
games, but won’t help on tough deals (like the 1941 deal)
However, the most important strategy of all is to try to keep the free cells empty. Yew
you can do that, and empty a couple of columns too, then you should find it very
Easy to finish the game.