Question 1

How do you play Eight Off?

Accepted Answer

Every card is face up from the start, so there is nothing hidden — only whether you can find the order. Build the four foundations up from ace to king. In the tableau, build down in the same suit. 8 free cells each hold one card, and 4 of them start with a card already in them. An empty column will only accept a king.

Question 2

Is this free? Do I need an account?

Accepted Answer

Free, no account, no download. It runs entirely in your browser.

Question 3

What makes Eight Off different from ordinary FreeCell?

Accepted Answer

Eight cells sounds generous until you notice four of them start occupied and empty columns take kings only. It builds in suit like Baker’s Game, and the extra cells are what make that survivable.

Question 4

How many cards can I move at once?

Accepted Answer

As many as you have places to put them. With all 8 cells empty you can move 9 cards, and each empty column doubles that — so 9 becomes 18 with one empty column and 36 with two. The game moves them for you when the move is legal; the arithmetic is (free cells + 1) × 2 to the power of empty columns.

Question 5

Are all deals winnable?

Accepted Answer

Not quite — almost every deal is winnable here. That figure is measured rather than assumed: this site has a solver for the family that searches each deal and reports whether a win exists, and the variants that shipped are the ones that passed it.

Question 6

What does a solver actually prove?

Accepted Answer

Three things, and the third is the honest one. It either finds a line to a win, proves that every reachable position has been explored and none wins, or reports that it ran out of search budget. A solver that confused the last two would quietly undercount how many deals are winnable, so they are kept apart.

Question 7

Why is there no version with zero free cells?

Accepted Answer

Because it cannot be won. It was in the codebase, described as brutal and popular, and the solver settled it: 30 deals out of 30 are provably unsolvable, most of them dead within a few dozen positions. With no cells you can move one card at a time onto a legal target, and a shuffled deal essentially never offers a route. A variant nobody can win is not a hard game.

Question 8

What should I do first?

Accepted Answer

Look for the aces and count what is on top of them. The deal is fully visible, which means the whole game is decided by planning rather than luck — spend the first minute finding your problem cards rather than making the obvious moves.

Question 9

What is the most common mistake?

Accepted Answer

Filling the free cells early. A card in a cell is a card doing nothing, and every occupied cell shortens the longest run you can move. Cells are working space, not storage.

Question 10

Should I empty a column?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but plan what goes into it. An empty column doubles your movable run, and here only a king can occupy it — so emptying one with no king ready wastes the best resource in the game.

Question 11

Why will the game not let me move a run?

Accepted Answer

Because you do not have enough space to move it one card at a time. The move is legal in principle and impossible in practice — free a cell or a column and it will go.

Question 12

Can I undo?

Accepted Answer

Yes, as far back as you like. Everything is visible from the deal, so there is no information to protect and no reason to make you live with a slip.

Question 13

Is there any luck in this game?

Accepted Answer

Only in the deal. After that there is nothing hidden, no shuffling and nothing drawn — two players given the same deal have exactly the same information, which is why FreeCell deals are worth comparing.

Question 14

Can I replay the same deal?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Every deal has a number and the same number always produces the same layout, so you can hand somebody the link and see who does better.

Question 15

What is a good win rate?

Accepted Answer

On standard FreeCell, strong players win well over 90% because almost every deal is winnable. Here the ceiling is lower — you cannot beat the deals that have no solution, and knowing that number stops a run of losses feeling like your fault when it is not.

Question 16

Does the order of the foundations matter?

Accepted Answer

No, they fill independently, one suit each. What matters is not sending a card home too early: a two you have banked is a two you cannot use to hold a three in the tableau.

Question 17

Should I always send cards to the foundation?

Accepted Answer

No, and this is the difference between a good player and a fast one. Low cards are useful in the tableau as landing spots. The autoplay here only sends a card home when it can never be needed again, which is a rule you can trust rather than a guess.

Question 18

Can I play on a phone?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The columns size to the screen, cards can be dragged or tapped, and the move-capacity readout tells you how long a run you can shift right now — which is the number you actually need and the one that is hardest to work out in your head.

Question 19

Does drag and drop work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and so does tapping. Press a card and move it, or tap it and tap where it goes — both do the same thing, and legal destinations light up either way.

Question 20

What other games in this family are here?

Accepted Answer

FreeCell itself, Baker’s Game, Eight Off, Relaxed FreeCell and Kings Only. All five are one engine with different settings: cell count, build rule, empty-column rule and how the deal is laid out.

Question 21

Where does FreeCell come from?

Accepted Answer

Paul Alfille wrote the first computer version in 1978 on the PLATO system, adapting an older game called Baker’s Game by changing the build rule from suit to alternating colour — which is what turned a mostly unwinnable game into a mostly winnable one. Microsoft shipping it with Windows in 1995 did the rest.