FreeCell

Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, building each suit up from Ace to King. You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations. As soon as no sequence of moves can bring another card to the foundations, the game is over without a win, even if cards can still move. Every game also stops after 3,000 moves.

Shuffle one deck and deal it face up, one row at a time from left to right, into eight columns: the first four columns get 7 cards and the last four get 6. The cards overlap so every one can be seen. Above the columns are four empty free cells and four empty foundations, one for each suit.

Look before you move: with every card in view, find the Aces and twos and plan how to dig them out. Keep free cells empty: each full cell shortens the runs you can move, so park a card only when it opens something useful. Value empty columns most: an empty column doubles the length of run you can move, and it takes any card.

Three or two free cells: fewer cells make the deal harder and the runs you can move shorter. Offered here as a setup option. Baker's Game: the columns are built down by suit instead of in alternating colors, so each card has only one place to go. Offered here as a setup option. Eight Off: a relative with eight free cells, half of them filled at the start, and columns built down by suit.

FreeCell grew out of Baker's Game, a patience built down by suit that the mathematics writer Martin Gardner described in his magazine column in 1968, crediting C. L. Baker. In 1978 Paul Alfille changed the building rule to alternating colors and programmed the game, under the name FreeCell, for an educational computer system at the University of Illinois. It reached a far wider audience in the 1990s, when it came with popular home computers.