FreeCell

FreeCell is the solitaire with no luck after the deal. Every card is face up from the start, so everything you need to know is on the table. Nearly every deal can be won; the challenge is finding the order of moves that does it.

How to play

• All 52 cards are dealt face up into eight columns. Your goal is to build four foundations, one per suit, from Ace up to King.
• Build the columns downwards in alternating colours, like a red 9 on a black 10.
• The four free cells in the top left each hold one card. Use them to park a card while you dig out the one you need, but every full cell makes the next move harder.
• Any card can go into an empty column, and an empty column is worth more than a free cell.
• Drag cards, or tap one to send it to the foundation, a column it fits on, or a free cell, in that order.

Moving several cards at once

Strictly, you move one card at a time. But if you have room, the game moves a whole ordered run for you, as if you had shuffled it through the free cells. The number you can move is (free cells + 1), doubled for every empty column. With two free cells and one empty column that is six cards. Moving into an empty column doesn’t count that column. The bar at the top shows your current limit on larger screens.

Numbered deals

Each game has a number from 1 to 32000, and the deals are the same classic ones players have shared for decades, so deal #1 here matches deal #1 anywhere. Enter a number from the New game menu to replay a deal or challenge a friend. One of them, #11982, is famous for being impossible.

Tips

• Look for the Aces and twos first, and plan how to dig them out.
• Keep free cells empty for as long as you can. Filling all four early is the most common way to get stuck.
• Emptying a column is often worth several moves of effort.
• Cards that nobody needs any more go to the foundations automatically, so you can focus on the hard part.
• Undo is unlimited. If you are stuck, step back to before you filled the last free cell.