How to Play Baker's Game — Rules and Tips

Same board as FreeCell, same controls. The only difference is one line of the rules — and that one line changes the whole game.

How it differs from FreeCell

Cards in a column must follow the same suit instead of alternating colours. Only ♠8 goes on ♠9. Everything else is exactly as in FreeCell — the four free cells, the multi-card move formula and the foundations are all unchanged.

Why it is so much harder

Every card has one landing spot instead of two. In FreeCell an 8 can go on either 9 of the opposite colour; in Baker's Game it needs the 9 of its own suit. If that one card is buried, there is simply nowhere to go.

In fact about a quarter of randomly shuffled Baker's Game deals cannot be solved at all. When we checked 5,000 deals, our solver could not solve 1,251 (25.0%). Those numbers have been given a different layout here, so every deal you get can be solved.

What winning players do

Treat same-suit runs as treasure

In FreeCell any alternating-colour sequence is a run; here it has to be one suit. A line like ♥7-♥6-♥5 is hard to build, and once you have it you can move it as a unit. Think twice before a move that breaks one up.

Empty columns are worth even more than in FreeCell

With so few landing spots, a place that accepts any card becomes more valuable. Clear a whole column before you worry about freeing one more cell.

Pick a direction early

Decide early which suit to clear first. Try to work on all four at once and the four free cells fill up fast — and with every cell full you can only move one card at a time, which means you can hardly do anything.

Controls

Same as FreeCell. Tap a card and it goes somewhere sensible; drag it to choose the spot yourself. The only difference is that the spots that light up when you pick a card follow the same-suit rule.

Because the board looks exactly like FreeCell, the header shows the game's name — you can't tell which game you're playing from the cards alone.

Further reading