Game Guides
Rules and strategy for five card games — from what you need to know before your first deal to the questions that only come up after you've played a few.
FreeCell — the main game
A card game with all 52 cards face up, so luck plays no part. We cover the supermove formula, the order in which to use empty columns and free cells, and what we found when we checked all 20,000 deals.
How to Play FreeCell — Rules and Tips →
Go deeper: History & contests ·
Strategy
Baker's Game
FreeCell, except that you build in suit only. That one line cuts the places a card can go from two to one, and one random deal in four can't be won at all.
How to Play Baker's Game — Rules and Tips →
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Strategy
TriPeaks
Clear the cards from three peaks. A deal takes about two minutes, and because an Ace links to both a 2 and a King, a deal that looks stuck can open up again.
How to Play TriPeaks — Rules and Tips →
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Strategy
Golf Solitaire
The shortest deal on the site. It looks like TriPeaks, but Ace and King don't link, which makes it the hardest of our five games.
How to Play Golf Solitaire — Rules and Tips →
Go deeper: History & contests ·
Strategy
Klondike Solitaire
The game most people simply call Solitaire. It builds the same way as FreeCell, but many cards start face down, and instead of free cells there is a stock you turn one card at a time.
How to Play Klondike Solitaire — Rules and Tips →
Go deeper: History & contests ·
Strategy
The five games at a glance
| Game | One deal | Undo | Unsolvable |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeCell | about 10 min | Yes | 0 |
| Baker's Game | 15 min or more | Yes | 25.0% |
| TriPeaks | about 2 min | No | 3.1% |
| Golf | 1–2 min | No | 55.6% |
| Klondike | about 5 min | Yes | 2.1% |
"Unsolvable" is the share of randomly shuffled deals our solver proved could not be won. A few deals could not be decided in time, and in Klondike that share was large, 15.9%. Every one of those numbers was given a different layout, so every deal you actually get can be won. Deal numbers currently open are #1–#20,000 for FreeCell and #1–#5,000 for the other four games.
More reading
Where these games came from, how people compete at them and what the jargon means: the stories beyond the rules are collected under Reading.