How to Win at Free Cell

*Originally published on 4/24/09



I don't know about you, but sometimes I get bored. If I'm on the computer and still find myself bored with nothing to really do, I start up a game of Free Cell. I was always OK at it, but I noticed that it came in bursts. I would win a bunch of games and than I wouldn't get a good set for like half a dozen games. I recently figured out what I was doing wrong and altered my strategy. Since then, my win percentage has improved drastically.

The mistake I always made was taking those 4 slots for granted. I would use those indiscriminately trying to get the cards up to the end pile. That's the fast track to defeat my friends. You want to keep those 4 slots open as long as possible and limit yourself to only using one or two. The more slots available, the more flexible you can be.

Your focus should, instead, be on getting the cards lined up in the rows set up on the bottom of the screen. Not just any rows. If you go in thinking your objective is to get all the cards into 4 rows of descending order from King to 2, it will guarantee you a victory nearly every time. You'll notice that the more the game progresses, the easier it will be to get things done. As you start to gain momentum, the game gets easier as you play it.

Ideally, you'll be able to keep two or three card slots available and open up a row on the bottom. If you do that, get as many cards in that new row as you can as it makes things a heck of a lot easier to organize.

Be careful you don't end up with a bunch of cards of the same color. If you do that, it will be very difficult to get things moving around the way you need to get yourself a win.

The initial part of the game is the most difficult. When you have every card laid out in random setups with all the cards you need up near the top. It's tempting to just throw cards into the 4 slots as it seems like the only way to get cards moved around, but as I said before, don't do that. You'll shoot yourself in the foot. If you can keep those open for the first dozen moves or so, it will be a much easier game for you later on down the line.

There's another trick I know of. In the older versions, you were limited to one "Undo". That is to say that if you made a mistake you could put a card back to where it originally was. In the current version on Vista, you can undo as many moves as you want. You can essentially backtrack to a point and come up with a completely new strategy without having to forfeit the game. It borders on cheating I know, but my roommates dub tactics like that "abusing game mechanics". The chink is there in the armor, no reason not to use it, right?