Plan before you move
Since every card is visible, FreeCell is a puzzle of perfect information. Before touching a card, take 10 seconds to scan the board for the four aces. Where are they? Which ones are already accessible? Which are buried, and how deeply? Aces are the gate to all foundation progress — every game plan starts from getting them out.
Free cells are a scarce resource
Your four free cells are not storage slots — they are short-term working memory. Every occupied cell reduces the number of cards you can shift in a single supermove. Two cells empty plus one empty column lets you move 6 cards. All four full and no empty columns drops you to 1 card at a time. That is the difference between a board you can solve and a board that has locked up.
Treat every free cell placement as a cost. Before parking a card, ask: "where does this card come out again?" If there's no clear exit path to a tableau run or foundation within 2–3 moves, you are burning capacity.
Empty columns are more valuable than free cells
An empty tableau column is worth 2× a free cell when it comes to supermove capacity. The formula is (1 + free cells) × (1 + empty columns): one extra empty column multiplies your capacity, while one extra free cell only adds to it.
This means clearing a column is one of the strongest plays in the game. If you see a short column you can consolidate into a longer run on another column, prioritize it — even if the move doesn't look flashy on its own, the compounding effect on your next 5 moves is enormous.
Build descending-alternating runs
When you're between foundation-ready cards, consolidate loose cards into long descending-alternating runs on the tableau. A single long run compresses more cards into one column, freeing up other columns — and runs can be supermoved as a group, turning 10 single clicks into 1.
The ideal late-game position has all remaining cards arranged as clean King-down runs. From there, the auto-complete cascade finishes the game for you.
Don't rush cards to foundations
It is tempting to send every available card straight to the foundations. Don't. A 4 you send up too early can strand a 3 of the same suit that you needed as a tableau bridge. A good rule of thumb: a card is only "safe" to send to its foundation when both of the following are true:
- Both cards one rank below it (opposite color) are already on foundations, OR
- You have clear capacity to extract any stranded card that needed it.
StillDeck's auto-complete cascade won't fire until the board is truly safe to finish, so you can play aggressively in the late-game knowing the engine won't rip foundations up prematurely — but during the mid-game, think before you foundation.
Expose, don't pile
Every move you make should do at least one of: expose a buried card, free a free cell, or empty a column. A move that accomplishes none of those — say, shuffling a 6 from column A to column B when column A still has a King buried under more cards — is generally a mistake.
Before each click, ask: "what does this move buy me?" If the answer is "nothing specific," you are probably about to lose tempo and should look for a different play.
Use the Hint button, but sparingly
StillDeck's Hint button shows the best currently-available move — not the winning line. Lean on it to unstick when you genuinely can't see a move, but don't autopilot on it: the real learning happens when you find the move yourself and compare it to what the hint would have done.
When to restart
A small fraction of FreeCell deals — roughly 1 in 1000 — are provably unsolvable. More commonly, you'll hit a position where the recovery line exists but isn't worth the re-plan overhead. If you've undone twice and still don't see a path forward, Restart (R) takes you back to the original deal with a fresh plan. No shame — you've already found the hard spots.