The FreeCell Project: How the Internet Solved 32,000 Deals

No one person solved the FreeCell 32000 deals. The best documented answer is the Internet FreeCell Project, a volunteer effort coordinated online in the 1990s. Its result was precise: 31,999 of Microsoft FreeCell’s first 32,000 deals were won; deal 11982 was the hold-out.

That distinction matters. People often write “all 32,000 were solved” as if every deal ended in a win. In FreeCell language, “solved” can mean something stricter: every deal was accounted for. A win was found, or the deal was identified as the exception that no human solution could dislodge and later solver work treated as unwinnable.

The story also shows why FreeCell stood apart from most solitaire games on early Windows. Every card is visible from the deal. Luck is mostly front-loaded into the layout, then the rest is planning, storage, and order. That made the game perfect for an internet-era crowd project: split the deal numbers, report the wins, argue over the failures, and keep going until the list stopped having gaps.

Who actually solved all 32,000 FreeCell deals, and when?

The honest answer is that no official body awarded a personal record for “solving all 32,000”. The credited achievement belongs to the Internet FreeCell Project, a volunteer effort associated with Dave Ring and other players who divided up Microsoft FreeCell’s original numbered deals during the 1990s.

The best documented figure is not 32,000 wins. It is 31,999 wins out of the 32,000 deals shipped with Microsoft FreeCell, with deal 11982 left as the exception. The project’s commonly cited completion point is 1995, when the numbered list had been worked through and the remaining argument centred on that one deal rather than thousands of unknowns.

That is the record worth keeping in your head: a collective internet project, completed in 1995, accounted for the first 32,000 Microsoft FreeCell deals and found wins for all but one. The wording is fussy because the record deserves it. “Solved all 32,000” is a tempting headline, but it hides deal 11982, the important bit.

FreeCell was suited to this kind of record because every card is face up at the start. A player looking at deal 2837 sees the whole problem, not a shuffled secret waiting underneath. Volunteers could compare results in a meaningful way. If two people selected the same deal number in Microsoft FreeCell, they were working on the same layout.

What does “32,000 solved” really mean?

In this story, “solved” does not mean “won 32,000 times”. It means the original Microsoft FreeCell deal list was systematically checked. Most deals were solved by finding a legal route to the foundations. One deal, 11982, became the documented exception.

• The set: the first 32,000 numbered deals in Microsoft FreeCell, the version many players met through Windows.
• The normal result: a winning sequence was found and recorded for the deal.
• The awkward result: deal 11982 resisted solution and became the famous outlier.
• The common misquote: “all 32,000 FreeCell deals were won”. That is not the reliable claim.
• The useful record: 31,999 wins, 1 exceptional deal, 32,000 deals accounted for.

The number also does not describe every possible FreeCell deal. A 52-card deck can be arranged in vastly more ways than 32,000. The 32,000 figure belongs to Microsoft’s original numbered deal list and the way its game let players choose a deal by number.

That is the detail many quick summaries miss. The FreeCell Project did not solve “FreeCell” as a mathematical universe. It solved a famous public list that millions of players could reproduce on their own machines.

How did the Internet FreeCell Project keep track of every deal?

The project worked because the target was finite and shared. Microsoft FreeCell gave players deal numbers, so the work could be split cleanly. A volunteer could take a block of numbers, play those deals, then report which ones had been won and which ones were still causing trouble.

That sounds ordinary now. In the mid-1990s it was exactly the sort of job the public internet was beginning to do well: many small contributions, a master list, and enough obsession to catch mistakes. The record was not one brilliant sitting by one player. It was clerical persistence attached to a hard puzzle.

The tracking problem was as important as the playing problem. If deal 17342 had already been won, another player did not need to spend a night on it unless they were checking the result. If a deal appeared unsolved, it could be pushed back into the crowd and tested by stronger players. Deal 11982 kept surviving that process.

There is no useful official scoreboard from Microsoft naming a single champion for the 32,000. What survives best is the project identity, the 1995 completion claim, and the stubborn count: 31,999 won. Careful answers name the project before they name any player.

Why did one stubborn deal matter so much?

• It stopped the clean headline. A perfect 32,000 out of 32,000 would be easy to repeat and easy to misunderstand. Deal 11982 forces the more accurate version: the list was accounted for, but not every deal was won.
• It tested the meaning of “almost”. FreeCell has a reputation for being nearly always winnable. The original Microsoft set supports that reputation: 31,999 wins from 32,000 deals. The exception makes the claim sharper, not weaker.
• It changed the burden of proof. At first, an unsolved deal only means nobody has found the line. After enough attempts, and later computer search work, 11982 became the deal people cite when they need the documented exception.
• It gave solver writers a benchmark. A FreeCell solver that crushes thousands of deals still has to behave sensibly when a deal cannot be won. A hard no is a different result from a slow yes.
• It made the record memorable. People forget a smooth count. They remember the one number that would not move: 11982.

What record can you trust today, and what should you ignore?

There is no official world-record certificate for the Internet FreeCell Project in the way there is for a timed sporting event. Treat the record as a documented community result, not a trophy held by one named player.

If a page gives you a single heroic winner, a perfect 32,000 wins, and no mention of 11982, it is smoothing away the part that makes the record trustworthy.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

The best FreeCell record is not the neatest one. It is better than that. A perfect 32,000-win claim would be easier to print on a badge, but the real story has the texture of people doing careful work in public: thousands of ordinary wins, one deal that refused to co-operate, and a number everyone could check for themselves.

That is why deal 11982 still gets mentioned. It is not famous because it is fun to play. It is famous because it kept the record honest. FreeCell gives you all the information at the start, so failure feels personal for longer than it should. You stare at the columns. You make space. You undo the plan in your head. Then, eventually, the question changes from “What am I missing?” to “Is there anything to miss?”

Most games will not put you there. Most FreeCell deals are won by calm housekeeping: clear an ace, protect an empty column, do not fill a free cell just because it is free. The old project’s 31,999 wins came from that sort of play repeated until the list was quiet. If you want the habit, start a deal and look for the move that creates space rather than the move that merely moves a card.