FreeCell looks like a card game about luck. It isn't. Almost every deal can be won. You lose by spending your reserves before the board pays them back.
Controls: tap a card to pick it up (with the run beneath it); tap a column, free cell or foundation to place it. Any card that fits a foundation goes home by itself. Undo rewinds one move.
Your free cells and empty columns are a bank account. A move should either send a card home or buy you a better move. If it does neither, it is a withdrawal you will pay for later.
This is why the player who keeps two free cells empty usually beats the player who makes the cleverest single move.
A free cell is a loan, not storage. Park a card there only when removing it unlocks the next move immediately. Four full free cells means you have no way to split a run, and the first awkward card you meet ends the game.
An empty column can take a whole run, not just one card. That makes it far more valuable than a free cell: it is where a long run goes while you dig underneath it. Emptying a column to park a lone king usually throws that space away for the rest of the game.
A useful test: will this king move again soon? If the answer is no, the empty column is probably worth more empty than occupied.
Do not clear every column at once. Pick the one or two columns holding the cards that matter — an ace, a 2, or the card that completes a long run — and work on those. The rest of the board can wait.
When two moves are equally safe, take the one that exposes a lower card. Low cards are the ones that go home, and they are the ones that unblock other suits.
You can move more than one card at a time, and only the cards matter: any clean descending alternating run moves as one, however long it is and however many free cells or empty columns you have. There is no supermove arithmetic in this game, and filling a free cell never costs you a move.
So keep long runs together. A nine-card run moves as easily as a single card.
Three clean runs, a king that is going nowhere, and an ace at the top of its column. Leave the runs alone, send the ace and 2 home, and keep the free cells for the moment the board actually needs them.
1. All four free cells are full and no columns are empty. Can you move a 9-card run onto an occupied column?
Yes. Any clean run moves as one here, whatever the free cells and empty columns look like. Only the run itself has to be right: each card one lower and the opposite colour from the one above it.
2. Two free cells are empty and two columns are empty. You want to move a 12-card run onto an occupied column. What do you need to check?
Nothing. Twelve cards or twenty, the move is legal if the run alternates cleanly. This game has no supermove limit, so spend your reserves on the board, not on counting cards.
3. The free cells are full, one column is empty, and the card you need is under a king. Do you put the king in the empty column?
Only if that card starts a chain. Moving the king fills your only staging space, and a king accepts nothing but a queen, so the column is dead until you clear it again. If the exposed card sends several cards home or empties another column, it can be worth it. Otherwise, find a way to free a cell first.
Stop looking for a clever move and look for the card that is closest to home. Then look for the card that is one move away from being exposed. Take that move, even if it seems small.
If neither exists, undo and re-examine the last three moves. Most dead ends were created five moves earlier by a free cell that did not need to be filled.