For example, the Four of Spades might be moved from a free cell onto either the Five of Hearts or the Five of Diamonds at the bottom of a pile. When moving a card from a free cell to the tableau, it can only be placed either into a vacant column or onto the lowermost card in a pile that is next-in-rank and of the opposite (red or black) color. Any single card may be moved to an empty free cell. In the first 4 columns, piles of 7 cards are dealt, and in the remaining 4 columns, piles of 6 cards are dealt.Ī card may be moved by the player back and forth between the tableau and the free cell area. When the game starts, all 52 cards are dealt face-up into the 8 columns in the tableau. The goal of FreeCell is to build up all 4 of the suits in the foundation, each in order from Ace to King. The most popular version played today is the Classic version. Originally, the game had several different variants. Working at the University of Illinois, he programmed the first computerized version of the game in 1978. Paul Alfille is credited with the invention of FreeCell.

From low to high, card ranks run in order from Ace, to Two, to Three, and so on up to Ten, Jack, Queen, and finally King. You can play this deal from the top menu (choose 'Numbered Games').īoth ranks and suits of cards are important in FreeCell.

A rare example of a deal that is considered to be unsolvable is deal number 11982 from Windows 95's version of FreeCell. The only real difference is that in FreeCell, they are built by alternate (red and black) colors, while in Baker's Game cards are built by suit.Īlmost all FreeCell games are winnable. It's a modification of the solitaire game called Baker's Game. Classic FreeCell is played with one 52-card deck of standard playing cards.

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