How to Play Baker's Game

How to Play

Baker's Game is the one-player patience that FreeCell was built from: the same 8-column, 4-free-cell layout, but the tableau must build down in the same suit rather than alternating colour, making it noticeably harder and less often solvable than its famous descendant.

Baker's Game is a one-player patience game and the direct historical precursor to FreeCell, using the same 8-column, 4-free-cell layout but with a much stricter tableau rule: cards must build down in the same suit rather than in alternating colour. That single change removes a huge share of the legal moves available in FreeCell, so runs are harder to form, free cells clog up faster, and a meaningfully larger share of deals resist a clean solution. Games take 10 to 20 minutes and reward patient, suit-aware planning rather than the freewheeling colour-swapping that makes FreeCell forgiving.

Players

1 player. Baker's Game is strictly solitary; there is no standard multiplayer form.

Card Deck

One standard 52-card deck, no jokers. All four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades) and all thirteen ranks are used. Within each suit, cards rank Ace (low, for foundations) through King (high). Unlike FreeCell, colour is irrelevant to tableau building here: what matters is that a card and the one it lands on share the exact same suit.

Objective

Move all 52 cards to the four foundations, each foundation built upward in a single suit from Ace to King: →, →, →, →. The game is won when every card sits on a foundation; any end state with cards still in the tableau or free cells is a loss.

Setup and Deal

1. Shuffle the 52-card deck thoroughly.
2. Deal the entire deck face-up into 8 tableau columns: the first 4 columns receive 7 cards each (28 total), the remaining 4 columns receive 6 cards each (24 total). Cards overlap downward so every card is visible.
3. Leave 4 free cells empty as single-card reserve slots; each cell can hold exactly one card of any suit and rank at a time.
4. Leave 4 foundation slots empty, one per suit. Foundations start empty; the first card played to each must be its Ace.

Gameplay

1. Available cards: The bottom-most card of each of the 8 tableau columns is available, as is the single card in any occupied free cell. Only available cards can be moved.
2. Tableau building (down, same suit): Move the bottom card of any column onto another column whose bottom card is exactly one rank higher and of the identical suit. Example: a may only be placed on an ; it cannot land on , , or the way it could in FreeCell's alternating-colour rule.7♣8♣8♠8♥8♦
3. Free cell (temporary storage): Move any available card to an empty free cell. Each free cell holds one card at a time; the card in a free cell remains available for later use.
4. Foundation play: An available card may move to a foundation if it is the next rank up in its own suit, starting with the Ace and continuing 2, 3, up through King. Once a card sits on a foundation it is locked there under the strict rule.
5. Empty columns: Any single available card may fill an empty tableau column under the standard rule, exactly as in FreeCell. Some digital collections offer a Kings-only variant, borrowed from Eight Off, for extra difficulty (see Common Variations).
6. Single-card moves (strict rule): Only one card moves at a time by hand; a run cannot be picked up and dropped elsewhere as a group unless every card in it already forms a legal same-suit descending sequence.
7. Supermoves: Most software implementations allow a same-suit descending run to move as a single action, provided enough free cells and empty columns exist to have moved the cards one at a time. The formula matches FreeCell's: max supermove length = (1 + empty free cells) x 2^(empty columns). Because tableau runs must share one suit, qualifying sequences are rarer than in FreeCell even when the formula allows a bigger move.
8. Game end: The game ends when every card sits on a foundation (win), or when no legal move remains with at least one card still off a foundation (loss).
9. Illegal play: Placing a card on a tableau card of a different suit, or on the wrong rank of a foundation, is illegal; return the card. Holding two cards in one free cell is illegal.

Winning

• Win condition: All four foundations run complete from Ace to King in their suits, leaving the tableau and free cells empty.A♠K♠
• Loss condition: A stuck state with no legal moves and at least one card still off a foundation.
• No score, no tie-breakers: Baker's Game is win-or-loss. Because the same-suit rule blocks far more moves than FreeCell's alternating-colour rule, a noticeably larger share of shuffled deals end up unsolvable, so tracking your personal win rate matters more here than in most patience games.

Common Variations

• FreeCell: Relaxes tableau building from same suit to alternating colour, which is exactly how Paul Alfille created FreeCell out of Baker's Game in 1978; the relaxed rule makes nearly every FreeCell deal solvable.
• Eight Off: 8 free cells instead of 4, but only Kings may fill empty columns; the extra free cells offset the same-suit-style restriction found in some Eight Off rule sets.
• Seahaven Towers: 10 tableau columns of 5 cards, only 2 free cells, and only Kings may fill empty columns; harder than standard Baker's Game despite the smaller tableau.
• Kings-only Baker's Game: A common house rule that borrows Eight Off's restriction, allowing only Kings into empty columns instead of any card; noticeably harder than the standard version.
• Relaxed Baker's Game: Some software allows supermoves as if the alternating-colour rule applied, while still requiring same-suit placement for single-card moves; this speeds up play without changing the underlying puzzle.

Tips and Strategy

• Track suits, not colours. The instinct to slot a onto an carries over from FreeCell and will cost you a wasted look; only the matching is a legal target here.7♣8♦8♣
• Guard your free cells even more jealously than in FreeCell. With only same-suit runs available for supermoves, a filled free cell often can't be freed again for many moves, so use one only with a concrete plan.
• Empty columns are still your best resource. An empty column multiplies your supermove capacity by the same formula as FreeCell, but because qualifying same-suit runs are scarcer, protect any empty column fiercely once you have one.
• Dig for Aces and low cards of each suit early. A suit whose Ace is buried deep under other suits' cards can stall an entire game, since nothing in that suit can reach its foundation until the Ace surfaces.
• Don't rush cards to the foundation. A low card of a suit sitting on the foundation may be needed a few moves later as the base of a tableau run in that same suit; hold cards that still have tableau value.
• Expect more dead ends than FreeCell. If a deal looks unsolvable after a thorough search, that's consistent with Baker's Game's much lower solve rate; abandon it and reshuffle rather than grinding a genuinely lost position.

Glossary

• Tableau: The 8-column spread of face-up cards dealt at the start of the game.
• Column: One of the 8 tableau stacks; only the bottom card of each is available to move.
• Free cell: A single-card reserve slot; holds exactly one card at a time as a temporary stash.
• Foundation: One of the 4 suit piles built upward from Ace to King; filling all four wins the game.A♠K♠
• Same-suit building: The tableau rule unique to Baker's Game: a card may only be placed on another card of identical suit, one rank higher.
• Supermove: A multi-card move allowed by the current free cells and empty columns, limited to cards that already form a legal same-suit descending run.
• Available card: The bottom card of a tableau column or a card sitting in a free cell; only these can be moved.