******************************************************************************* FREECELL for PC ******************************************************************************* FAQ/STRATEGY GUIDE v1.0 ******************************************************************************* By DENOUEMENT (cgparham757@aol.com) ******************************************************************************* ______ _ _ | ____| | | | | |__ _ __ ___ ___ ___ ___| | | | __| '__/ _ \/ _ \/ __/ _ \ | | | | | | | __/ __/ (_| __/ | | |_| |_| \___|\___|\___\___|_|_| ******************************************************************************* DISCLAIMER: This file is copyright by Denouement (Chris Parham). You may NOT reproduce or distribute this guide in any manner, electronically or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author. You may not display this guide on any page in which there are advertisment banners. Below can be found the list of sites that are permitted to host this guide. This list can be changed at any time. List of acceptable sites: GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com). List of sites which do NOT have permission: www.cheats.de Remember, plagiarism is a crime and is punishable under the law. Note: You can always find the latest version at GameFAQs, at www.gamefaqs.com Thanks CJayC! ******************************************************************************* E-MAIL POLICY: I welcome e-mails at cgparham757@aol.com but here are the Do's and the Dont's: DO send questions not in the FAQ. DO send questions in text or HTML format. DO send e-mails with "GameFAQs" in the subject line. DO send suggestions and corrections, this is not a final guide. DO tell me if you find this guide on a site where it is not permitted (see above). DON'T send executables. DON'T send vulgar or inappropriate mail. DON'T send mail over and over again, I only check it once every day, at most. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible...unless you did one of the "DONTS", in which case your mail will be summarily ignored and ruthlessly deleted. ******************************************************************************* This is just a simple FAQ. :) No strategy here (maybe later), but don't worry because a few games of practice will get you right into the flow of things. Enjoy this guide, hombres. ******************************************************************************* *** THE QUESTION LIST: What is the attraction of Freecell? What are the rules of the game? What versions of Freecell exist? Anything else to know about the PC version? How many of the deals can be won? What are the bonus games? What are the cheats in Freecell? How many Freecell deals are there? What is Freecell notation? What are some extra challenges? How about some cool effects? Have any cool deals for me? ******************************************************************************* *** What is the attraction of Freecell? Considering that Freecell isn't the most well-known game, you might wonder why Microsoft chose this game to include this software with Windows. But this game is great, mainly because it is a great determiner of skill and strategy. Most solitaire games are difficult to win even with the best play and require a lot of luck to win regularly. However, almost every Freecell deal can be won with perfect play; and of the 32000 included in the basic Windows version, all but one are winnable. This means that its not the player's luck being tested, but rather his skill. Also, since all cards can be seen from the beginning, the game offers you the chance to plan ahead; once again, other games would force you to rely on luck in that situation. *** What are the rules of the game? A full fifty-two card deck is randomly distributed face-up into eight columns, four of seven and four of six. Cards overlap so that only the bottom card is accessible, and only one card may be moved at a time. The legal moves are as follows: 1) Any card may be moved to one of the four stacks, which must be built up from ace to king in suit. When all cards are in the stacks the game is won. 2) Any card may be moved into an open FreeCell, of which there are four. 3) Cards may be built downward in the columns from king to ace in alternating color. For instance, a red (hearts or diamonds) nine can be played on a black (spades or clubs) ten. You will notice that in the computer version of a game, you can move groups of cards together; be aware that this is just the game speeding up the movement of cards. Technically, you are shifting cards back and forth between empty spaces in order to move a group like this. Note that an empty column can be filled by any card, not just a king as in many games. Following are the specific rules of the game, straight from the game itself. The game area consists of four home cells, four free cells, and a deck of cards, which is dealt face up in eight columns at the beginning of the game. To move a card, click the card you want to move, and then click where you want to move it. You can move cards according to the following rules:  A card from the bottom of a column can move to a free cell.  A card from a free cell, or from the bottom of a column, can move to a home cell. Moves to a home cell must be made in order of lowest to highest, same suit.  Aces can move to an empty home cell.  A card from a free cell, or from the bottom of a column, can move to the bottom of another column. Moves to a column must be made in order of highest to lowest, alternating suit colors. *** What versions of Freecell exist? The original version of Freecell has been used for a number of editions of Windows. This is the version you can recognize by the fact that "Select a Deal" demands a number from 1 to 32000. Windows XP introduced a new version with one million deals which comes free with the operating system. A number of cool freeware programs are also available for playing Freecell. Get FreeCell Pro, an excellent freeware program, at: . This game allows you to record solutions, keep a log, have more statistics, and also play with more or less FreeCells for an added challenge, and features in the latest version over eight BILLION deals. *** Anything else to know about the PC version? You should know that Macintosh versions are available. You should also know, as a point of fact, that for all the main versions of the game, even the freeware ones, the numbered deals are identical. For instance, deal #16789 will be the same in FreeCell, FreeCell XP, and FreeCell Pro. Finally, note that MS FreeCell is not flawless in its performance of automatic group moves. For instance, three blank columns can move an eight card sequence from one column to another; but MS will tell you that you can only move three. You can perform the action manually, but for the best Freecell time just download FCPro. In the MS version, reveal a partially covered card by right-clicking the card. And clicking on a card moves it to a freecell, if one is available. *** How many of the deals can be won? Of the 32000 original deals, all but one can be solved, and this has been verified. The impossible deal can be seen by choosing game number 11982. David Ring's Internet FreeCell Project proved all the other 31999 to be possible to defeat. The Windows XP version extends out to one million deals, and eight cannot be defeated: the same 11982, and in addition 146692, 186216, 455889, 495505, 512118, 517776, and 781948. When you're playing, unless you are playing through them in order or intentionally choose the unwinnable game, every game you choose is almost certainly winnable. Computer analysis of many, many deals (millions) suggests that the ideal win rate for FreeCell is well over 99% with the best possible play. In fact, an extensive analysis showed that of the first 20 million numbered deals in FCPro, 263 cannot be solved; this suggests that about one in every 76,000 deals is impossible. *** What are the bonus games? Input -1 or -2 into the "Select Game" box to get two bonus games. They are pretty looking setups, and both are clearly unwinnable. This type of impossible setup is easy to create. However, just by adding a fifth FreeCell, both of these setups, and the infamous #11982, can be defeated. Creating setups that require six or seven FreeCells to solve is almost impossible, and it is likely that EVERY setup can be solved with eight available FreeCells. *** What are the cheats in Freecell? There is one cheat but it is pretty great. At any time hold down Ctrl + Shift + F10, and up pops the "User-Friendly User Interface" window. Choose Abort to win the game, Retry to lose the game, or Ignore to cancel. Note that after you select win or lose, you will have to make one move, any move, to achieve the automatic victory or loss. So you have to use it before your position is completely blocked, otherwise it won't work. This cheat is unconfirmed for any other version besides the basic one. *** How many Freecell deals are there? 32000 different deals are included in the basic Windows version, and 1 million in the Windows XP version. But this number pales in comparison to the actual number of extant Freecell deals. Basic combinatory mathematics allows us to see that there are 52! possible different deals (52 factorial, or 52*51*50*...*3*2*1). This number is about 8.0658 X 10^67, or 80 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion deals. However, many deals are mathematically equivalent, and we can remove all but about 1 out of every 4608 deals as redundant, leaving us with an effective total of only 1.7504 X 10^64. Following is an explanation of the number 4608. First, the initial setup contains 4 columns of seven and 4 columns of eight cards. Any column is interchangeable with another of the same number, with no effect on the game. There are (4!*4!)=576 permutations of any identical combination of columns. So we can eliminate 575 out of every 576 deals. Next, the suits and colors aren't distinct objects in this game, but only mathematical values assigned to cards, and can be completely interchanged with no effect. For instance; if we replace every club with the same number heart, and so on for spades and diamonds, the setup is the same as far as the game is concerned. We can either do: Spades <----> Diamonds Spades <----> Hearts Clubs <----> Hearts or Clubs <----> Diamonds And furthermore, switching all spades for all clubs, or all hearts for all diamonds, does nothing. Thus, these are all the same: (SHDC) (HSCD) (DCSH) (CHDS) (SDHC) (HCSD) (DSCH) (CDHS) This means that only one out of every 8 possibilities is relevant. So we can divide the number of deals by 8, giving us 1.7504 X 10^64. *** What is Freecell notation? Freecell notation is an easy way to write out or save solutions to different layouts, without using a lot of space. Each play consists of two characters; the origin of cards and the destination of cards. The numbers 1-8 indicate the columns, left to right; the letters a-d indicate the four FreeCells; and h represents the home stacks. The key is that on each move, you move AS MANY CARDS as you can from one place to the other. To denote that the reader should move less than the maximum number of cards, the two-letter entry should be followed by the number of cards moved in parantheses, as so: 35 (1). Such a situation can only happen when you are moving cards into an empty column, from another column. As an example of Freecell notation, here are solutions to games #1 and #2. Such solutions as these assume that you are playing the computer version, therefore automatic moves are taken into account. Game #1: 6d 6c 6c 67 76 87 56 52 8b 82 42 74 85 35 7a 8h 86 78 c8 73 48 1c 13 b7 c7 1c 16 1b 14 a1 c1 d6 5d 5c 5a 57 b5 45 4b a4 b4 dh 24 3d 3b 3a 37 35 35 a3 b3 d3 25 32 75 38 68 46 43 63 4d 47 d6 46 c7 73 26 26 27 67 26 Game #2: 4d 4c 46 48 46 58 26 23 4b 5h 54 52 57 58 c8 d7 25 32 43 35 37 74 74 54 74 84 1d 61 62 12 56 65 62 d6 b2 68 61 36 35 85 8d 38 83 d8 18 13 83 *** What are some extra challenges? If you're using FCPro, try solving games using three, two, one, or even zero FreeCells. On the regular version, try putting the aces up in a certain order, or any other challenge you can come up with! One cool idea is to go for the maximum "flourish", which means as many cards as possible going up to the stacks only at the very end, when the game is making automatic moves. With animation on this can look pretty cool. Check out the next section for some fifty-two card (full deck) flourishes. *** Have any cool deals for me? These numbers are large and you need FreeCell Pro or an equivalent to access most of these deals: 52-Card Flourishes: 7239, 9993, 10331, 12387, 16508, 17502, 18492, 22574, 23190, 27251. You'll need clever play to attain the maximum flourish, but they are all possible. 14 Cards Immediately to Home: 181627041 15 Cards Immediately to Home: 143973501 16 Cards Immediately to Home: 2016704153, 3453036771, 4418013924, 5856288588, 8110636965. ******************************************************************************* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS/AN ENDORSEMENT: Michael Keller's FAQ is very large and extensive. Check it out at the following link to his site: http://home.earthlink.net/~fomalhaut/fcfaq.html And another plug for FreeCell Pro: http://home.earthlink.net/~fomalhaut/fcpro.html Thanks to Windows and the game's designers for the fun of this game. FreeCell is copyright to Microsoft, and the software is by Jim Horne. Thanks to GameFAQs, and especially to CJayC for doing such a great job there. ******************************************************************************* This file is copyright by Denouement (Chris Parham). You may NOT reproduce or distribute this guide in any manner, electronically or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author. You may not display this guide on any page in which there are advertisment banners. Below can be found the list of sites that are permitted to host this guide. This list can be changed at any time. "The Freecell FAQ" Last Update: 27.9.2002 Version: 1.0 DENOUEMENT