You can find all AARP's solitaire card games to play here. Play for fun, play for free. Enjoyable games like spider solitaire and FreeCell solitaire! This card game is a bit different from the standard solitaire game. Freecell solitaire is a variation of solitaire that includes spaces to hold cards, or 'free cells.' The free cells in the upper left act as a maneuvering space. You can use the free cells strategically to transfer all cards from the tableau to the foundation slots.
FreeCell Rules
The different piles
There are three different types of piles in FreeCell Solitaire. They are:
- The Free Cells: The four piles in the upper left corner.
- The Foundations: The four piles in the upper right corner.
- The Tableau: The eight piles that make up the main table.
The setup
The Tableau piles are numbered from 1 to 8, piles 1-4 start with 7 cards each, piles 5-8 with 6 cards each. The Foundations and Free Cells are empty.
The objective
To win FreeCell, you must get all the cards onto the Foundations. The Foundations are ordered by suit and rank, each Foundation has one suit and you must put the cards onto them in the order Ace 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jack Queen King. To do that you can use the moves described below:
Allowed moves
- Move one or more cards from one Tableau pile to another. You can move the top card of a pile on the Tableau onto another Tableau pile, if that pile's top card is one higher than the moved card and in a different color. For example, you could move a red 6 onto a black 7. If the top cards on a Tableau pile are ordered, e.g. you have red 6, black 5, red 4 as the top cards, then you can click the red 6 and move all of them together onto another Tableau pile that has a black 7 as its top card. HOWEVER, there is a limitation to how many ordered cards you can move together. The number of cards you can move together is basically the number of empty free cells and empty tableaus + 1. So, if you have 2 free cells empty you can move 3 cards together. If you have all 4 free cells empty you can move 5 cards. If you have 3 free cells and 4 empty tableaus you can move 8 cards together. Moving many cards together is basically just a convenience the game provides. In the strictest sense you should always move one at a time, but if you have 4 ordered cards and 3 free cells then you could trivially move the top 3 ordered cards to the free cells, then move the fourth card and then move the 3 cards from the free cells back onto the fourth card. So, for convenience the game allows you to move n+1 cards together, where n is the number of free cells.
If you have an empty Tableau pile then you can move any card there. - Move a single card onto a Free Cell. You can always move the top card of any Tableau Pile, Free Cell or Foundation onto a Free Cell if it's empty. Free Cell's can only hold a single card at a time.
- Move a card from a Free Cell. You can move a card from a Free Cell onto a Foundation if it's in the same suit and one higher than the Foundation's top card. Or you can move a card from a Free Cell onto a Tableau pile if the card is one lower and in a different color than the Tableau pile's top card. E.g. you could move a red 5 from a Free Cell onto a Tableau pile where the current top card was a black 6.
- You can move a Tableau card onto the Foundations. You can either drag the cards onto the Foundation, or just double click it and then it will go there by itself. When the Free Cells are empty and all cards on the Tableau are arranged in 4 piles and each of the piles has been ordered in descending order with alternating red/black cards then the Tableau will clear itself, since at that point you are guaranteed to win the game.
- You can Undo as many times as you like. The game offers unlimited undos. Each Undo counts as a new move though, so if you're trying to win the game in as few moves as possible you should be careful about how many undos you use.
Time and Moves
The game counts the moves you make, and measures the time it takes to finish the game, so you can compete against your previous best games if you want. Currently this data is not stored anywhere, in the future I might add some kind of high scores.
About FreeCell
Hi. My name is Einar Egilsson and I made this online verson of FreeCell. FreeCell is the second solitaire game I create, before that I created Klondike (or 'classic' solitaire) and I've also made a few card games like Hearts, Spades and Whist.
If you have any questions, comments or requests for other solitaire games you can send them to admin@cardgames.io or tweet at me @cardgames_io. If you have any errors or problems when playing the game please include which browser you're using when you email me, it makes figuring out the problem a lot easier :)
Many thanks go to Nicu Buculei, who created the excellent playing card images that I use for the game.
If you like this game check out my various other games, and please share them on Facebook/Twitter/Google+
This is version 2887 of FreeCell.
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Cats + Cards = AWW Solitaire.
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Classic Solitaire Overview
Classic Solitaire (known only as simply “Solitaire” by some, and “Klondike Solitaire” by others) is a crazy popular card game that is won by moving all cards in a single deck from the tableau to the foundation piles.
Classic Solitaire Rules
So how do you play this game?
The layout of the card game table is fairly straightforward. Though you might not have heard these terms before, a game of classic is composed of the following items:
- the tableau
- the foundations
- the stock pile
- the discard pile (also known as the talon)
Initially, the foundation piles and the discard pile will be empty.
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If you are playing by hand, you start by shuffling your deck of cards fully, then start building the tableau. For the tableau, begin by dealing the first card up then place 6 more cards face down (for a grand total of 7 stacks on the main playing area (the tableau)). On the next go round, you place a face-up card on tableau stack #2, then 5 more face down cards on the remaining stacks. You repeat this process until you’ve placed your last face up card on the 7th tableau stack. Of course, if you’re playing on the Classic Solitaire site, all of this is taken care of for you automatically when you start a new game.
If you are playing by hand, after you have placed the appropriate number of cards on the tableau piles, you will have cards left over. These cards will be used for the stock pile. The traditional rules of classic solitaire generally have you deal 3 cards at a time from the stock, where only the top most card is playable at any given time. However, many (and possibly even most) online solitaire games let you deal 1 card at a time, making the game friendlier and easier to win. On the Classic Solitaire site, you can choose to deal 1 card at a time or 3, whatever you want. Also, in some versions of classic/klondike, the number of times you can go through the stock pile is limited. Most games give you an unlimited number of redeals which is the default in this game, though you can configure the number of redeals in the game preferences.
So now that everything is laid out on the game board appropriately, you can begin playing.
In Classic Solitaire, there are 2 main sets of rules:
- the rules for the foundations
- the rules for the tableau
On the tableau, cards are arranged in descending order (meaning King, Queen, Jack, 10, etc) in alternating color (e.g. a black 7 can be placed on a red 8).
There are 4 foundation piles (initially empty), one for each suit of Ace. As soon as you find an Ace, you immediately move it to a foundation pile. Unlike the tableau, foundation piles are built in ascending order (i.e., Ace, 2, 3, etc) and by the same suit (so for example, only diamonds are allowed in one of the 4 foundation piles).
The basic strategy in this classic card game is to uncover your turned over cards as soon as possible. If you have the option of using a card from the tableau or a card form the stock pile, you will almost always want to use the tableau card.
One additional strategy that is often overlooked is that you can strategically move cards from the foundation piles back to the tableau. However, some online games do not allow this. Basically, for those versions of the game, once a card is in one of the foundation piles, it is locked into place. But assuming you’re playing a game that allows this type of move, let me give you a simple scenario where this move could come in handy. You’ve got a black 4 and a black 2, both on the tableau. The black 2 has facedown cards underneath it, so obviously, it would be advantageous if you were able to move the black 2. You’ve already been through the stock pile and you know that there’s no red 3 in sight. But wait! There’s a shiny red 3 in one of the foundation piles. So you move that red 3 onto the black 4 et voilà, you can now move that black 2 onto the red 3, thus uncovering whatever was underneath the black 2.
Sometimes moves like these are the difference between winning and losing a game.
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When you are able to empty a tableau pile, you have a few options. The classic rules for Klondike say that only Kings can be placed in empty tableau spots. So this means you can either transfer an individual King card to the empty spot or a valid sequence of cards starting with a King to the empty spot (e.g. black King, red Queen, black Jack, etc). On the Solitaire Classic site, the default option is that only Kings can be placed in empty tableau piles. But you can choose this option or the option of allowing any card to go on a blank spot. Feel free to play however you want. Or hey, if you run into a dead end in a game, and your only option is to move a non-King card onto an empty space, feel free to change the rules on the fly. Is this cheating? That’s up to you. We feel you should have the freedom to play solitaire in whatever way makes it the most fun.
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