1. Choose Start➪Games; in the Games window, doubleclick
FreeCell.
2. In the resulting FreeCell window, a game is ready to play. If you want a fresh game, you
can always choose Game➪New Game; a new game is
dealt and ready to play.
The goal is to move all the cards, grouped by the four suits, to the
home cells (the four cells in the upper-right corner) stacked in order
from Ace at the bottom to King at the top. The trick here is that you
get four free cells (the four cells in the upper-left corner) where you
can manually move a card out of the way to free up a move. You
can also use those four slots to allow you to move up to four cards
in a stack at once. (For example, if you want to move a Jack, 10, 9,
and 8 all together onto a Queen.) You can move only as many cards
as there are free cells available plus one. Free spaces in the rows of
card stacks also act as free cells. You win when you have four stacks
of cards for each of the four suits placed on the home cells.
3. Click a card; to move it, click a free cell or another card
at the bottom of a column.
If you move a card to a free cell, you can move it back to the bottom
of a column, but only on a card one higher in an alternate
color. You could move a 3 of hearts to a 4 of spades, for example.
You stack the cards in the columns in alternating colors, but the
cards in the home cells end up in order and all in one suit.
If you get hooked on this game, try going to www.
freecell.com, a Web site devoted to FreeCell. Here
you can engage in live games with other players, read more about
the rules and strategies, and even buy FreeCell merchandise. Don’t
say I didn’t warn you about the possibility of addiction.
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