How to play FreeCell Solitaire?

FreeCell Solitaire is a combination of luck and tactics. The luck is from what cards you’re dealt, while the tactic comes into play when you need to prepare and calculate for several moves ahead.On the board, you have four blank fields on the left and the right. The ones on the left are called freecells, and the ones on the right are the homecells or the foundation. The goal of the game is to move all cards into the homecells.

Free Cell solitaire card games. Play free solitaire online. No registration or download required. 10000+ free solitaire games.

The games start with eight columns of cards, all 52 of them, where the first four columns have seven cards, while the other four have six. This arrangement is called the tableau. The cards from there will need to go to the homecells. Each homecell is for one of the card suits, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. You will need to order them starting from the ace and finishing with the king, making sure that each suit is in its homecell. The freecells are used like temporary holders, where you are able to place the last card in the tableau column to move it out of the way.

• Try your luck in Payday FreeCell HD, a classic free cell solitaire game. The goal of every game is to move all the cards into the four foundation stacks, divided by suit. Foundation Stacks always start with Aces on the bottom, so try to move them up there as early as you can.
• 1 Freecell is played just like the classic freecell game. Place cards in the game in columns alternating color and in decreasing order. The goal of the game is to get all the cards into the upper four slots according to suit, in ascending order. Freecell games all use an open cell to help move cards around in the game.
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• FreeCell Solitaire adds a new element of strategy to the classic solitaire games Klondike. After dealing from a standard deck of 52 cards, use the four free cell spots as placeholders as you try to move all of the cards from the Foundation stacks for a win.

All cards from the deck are randomized in the eight columns on the board, and you will need to move them around to put all of them in their homecells in the required order. You have three options to make your move, and they are the only ones you will need to know.

When you start the game, the cards that you are available to move are the ones that are on the bottom of the columns, in other words, if no other card is covering it. If it’s an ace, you can move it to a homecell. Moving the cards to a homecell means that you will need to move them with a specific order from ace to the king, making sure every card in that field is with the same suit.

When you move a card to a freecell, the only rule you need to follow is that you can have only one card in one freecell at a certain time. Apart from that, you are free to move any uncovered card there at any time. Even though you are available to use the freecells as much as you want, try to keep them available for future cards you may need to move around.

Before the game begins, you will need to come up with a tactic and plan a few moves ahead of time. This will enable you to plan how to move cards to their homecells or free them to be moved to a freecell or below another card in the columns. To move a free card from one position to another that is not a homecell or freecell there are three rules:

• it needs to be the latest card in the column, uncovered
• the card you intend to place on also needs to be a free one
• the card you move needs to be one card lower and with the opposite color than the card you plan to put it below.

Here is an example: if you have seven of hearts in one column and six of spades in another, you can place the six below the seven. On the other hand, if you have seven of hearts and six of diamonds, then you cannot. Below each black card will need to go a red one, and it needs to be one card lower – five below six, queen below the king, and so on.

During the process of clearing up the board, you will come into a situation where you will manage to clear out an entire column and be left with seven or less. In that case, you can grab any free card and move it to an empty column slot. It doesn’t matter which card it is, as long as it is a free one.

The advantage of the game is that all cards are uncovered, meaning that there will be no surprises, and you have the option to plan well ahead. Since the game randomizes the cards, there may be a situation where you will be left with no options or possible moves. There are ways of avoiding this, but if you don’t manage to do so, restart the game and try again.

If you like FreeCell, you may also like Spider Solitaire. Also, don’t forget to play or the day for classic solitaire also known as klondike solitaire. And if you’re looking for new types of games, we have over 500 different solitaire card games. Good luck!

History of FreeCell Solitaire

FreeCell is one of the most popular card games you can find on most computers. It was first introduced in 1978 by Paul Alfille, who programmed the first computerized version of it as a medical student on a PLATO computer at the University of Illinois.

It was popularized in 1991 when it came preinstalled with every version of Windows. Just like any other card game, there is a unique set of rules that a player must follow to win the game. The game is played with one deck of cards, and even though there is an infinite number of possible deals, don’t expect to be able to learn all of them. Mathematically speaking, there are 1.75 times 10 to the power of 64 possible games.

With all the billions of possible games and combinations, you may think that it’s a challenging game to play. In reality, it’s relatively easy, and there are a few simple rules you’ll need to follow.

FreeCell is a solitairecard game played using the standard 52-card deck. It is fundamentally different from most solitaire games in that very few deals are unsolvable,^[1] and all cards are dealt face-up from the very beginning of the game.^[2] Although software implementations vary, most versions label the hands with a number (derived from the seed value used by the random number generator to shuffle the cards).^[2]

Microsoft has included a FreeCell computer game with every release of the Windows operating system since 1995, greatly contributing to the game's popularity among users of personal computers, even leading to the creation of several websites devoted to FreeCell.^[3] Microsoft FreeCell is so definitive for many FreeCell players that many other software implementations strive for compatibility with its random number generator in order to replicate its numbered hands.^[2][4]

Rules[edit]

Construction and layout[edit]

• One standard 52-card deck is used.
• There are four open cells and four open foundations. Some alternate rules use between one and ten cells.
• Cards are dealt face-up into eight cascades, four of which comprise seven cards each and four of which comprise six cards each. Some alternate rules will use between four and ten cascades.

Building during play[edit]

• The top card of each cascade begins a tableau.
• Tableaux must be built down by alternating colors.
• Foundations are built up by suit.

Moves[edit]

• Any cell card or top card of any cascade may be moved to build on a tableau, or moved to an empty cell, an empty cascade, or its foundation.
• Complete or partial tableaus may be moved to build on existing tableaus, or moved to empty cascades, by recursively placing and removing cards through intermediate locations. Computer implementations often show this motion, but players using physical decks typically move the tableau at once.

Install Free Cell Card Game

The number of cards a player can move is equivalent to number of empty cells plus one, with that number doubling based on how many empty cascades there are. The mathematical equation for the number of cards that can be moved is (2^M)×(N + 1), where M is the number of empty cascades and N is the number of empty cells.^[5]

Victory[edit]

• The game is won after all cards are moved to their foundation piles.

It is estimated that 99.999% of possible deals are solvable.^{[citation needed]} Deal number 11982 from the Windows version of FreeCell is an example of an unsolvable FreeCell deal, the only deal among the original 'Microsoft 32,000' which is unsolvable.^[2]

Free Cell Card Game Rules

History & Variants[edit]

One of the oldest ancestors of FreeCell is Eight Off. In the June 1968 edition of Scientific American, Martin Gardner described in his 'Mathematical Games' column a game by C. L. Baker that is similar to FreeCell, except that cards on the tableau are built by suit rather than by alternate colors. Gardner wrote, 'The game was taught to Baker by his father, who in turn learned it from an Englishman during the 1920s.'^[6] This variant is now called Baker's Game. FreeCell's origins may date back even further to 1945 and to a Scandinavian game called Napoleon in St. Helena (not the solitaire game Napoleon at St. Helena, also known as Forty Thieves).^[2]

Free Cell Card Game Microsoft

Paul Alfille changed Baker's Game by making cards build according to alternate colors, thus creating FreeCell. He implemented the first computerised version as a medical student at the University of Illinois,^[7] in the TUTOR programming language for the PLATO educational computer system in 1978. Alfille was able to display easily recognizable graphical images of playing cards on the 512 × 512 monochrome display on the PLATO systems.^[8]

Spider Cell Card Game

This original FreeCell environment allowed games with 4–10 columns and 1–10 cells in addition to the standard 8 × 4 game. For each variant, the program stored a ranked list of the players with the longest winning streaks. There was also a tournament system that allowed people to compete to win difficult hand-picked deals. Paul Alfille described this early FreeCell environment in more detail in an interview from 2000.^[9]

In 2012, researchers used evolutionary computation methods to create winning FreeCell players.^[10]

Other solitaire games related to or inspired by FreeCell include Seahaven Towers, Penguin, Stalactites, ForeCell, Antares (a cross with Scorpion), and several others.

Solver complexity[edit]

The FreeCell game has a constant number of cards. This implies that in constant time, a person or computer could list all of the possible moves from a given start configuration and discover a winning set of moves or, assuming the game cannot be solved, the lack thereof. To perform an interesting complexity analysis one must construct a generalized version of the FreeCell game with 4 × n cards. This generalized version of the game is NP-complete;^[11] it is unlikely that any algorithm more efficient than a brute-force search exists that can find solutions for arbitrary generalized FreeCell configurations.

There are 52! (i.e., 52 factorial), or approximately 8×10⁶⁷, distinct deals. However, some games are effectively identical to others because suits assigned to cards are arbitrary or columns can be swapped. After taking these factors into account, there are approximately 1.75×10⁶⁴ distinct games.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ^Leonhard, Woody (2009). Windows 7 All-in-One for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 293. ISBN9780470487631.
2. ^ ^abcdefKeller, Michael (August 4, 2015). 'FreeCell -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)'. Solitaire Laboratory. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
3. ^Glenn, Jim and Denton, Carey. The Treasury of Family Games (page 105). Reader's Digest, 2003 (ISBN9780762104314)
4. ^'PySol - Rules for Freecell'. PySolFC documentation. Retrieved 3 February 2018.
5. ^'solitaire - FreeCell: How many cards can be moved at once?'. Board & Card Games Stack Exchange.
6. ^Gardner, Martin (June 1968). 'Mathematical Games'. Scientific American. 218 (6): 114. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0668-112.
7. ^'History of FreeCell Solitaire'. Solitaired. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
8. ^Kaye, Ellen (October 17, 2002). 'One Down, 31,999 to Go: Surrendering to a Solitary Obsession'. New York Times.
9. ^Cronin, Dennis (May 4, 2000). 'Interview with Paul Alfille'. Freecell.net. Retrieved March 4, 2011.
10. ^Elyasaf, Achiya; Hauptman, Ami; Sipper, Moshe (December 2012). 'Evolutionary Design of FreeCell Solvers'(PDF). IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. 4 (4): 270–281. doi:10.1109/TCIAIG.2012.2210423.
11. ^Helmert, Malte (March 2003). 'Complexity results for standard benchmark domains in planning'. Artificial Intelligence. 143 (2): 219–262. doi:10.1016/S0004-3702(02)00364-8.

Additional sources[edit]

• 'OHSU scientists say FreeCell can be adapted to spot early signs of dementia'. Oregon Health & Science University. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
• O'Hale, Marty M. (August 14, 2007). 'The Four Virtues of FreeCell'. The Escapist Magazine. Retrieved June 9, 2012.

See also[edit]