Guide
How to Play Eight Off Solitaire
Eight Off is the open-information solitaire that FreeCell descends from. All 52 cards are dealt face up: eight tableau columns of six cards each, with the four leftover cards starting in the first four of eight free cells. Move the whole deck to the four foundations, Ace to King by suit, to win.
Two rules set it apart from its famous child. Tableau columns build down by the same suit rather than alternating colors, and only Kings may claim an empty column. The eight cells give you plenty of parking — the puzzle is spending that space wisely.
How Eight Off is set up
Eight Off uses one standard 52-card deck dealt entirely face up. Eight tableau columns of six cards account for 48 of them, and the remaining four begin in free cells — so four of the eight cells start occupied and four start open.
Above the table sit four foundations, one per suit. Each starts empty and builds upward from the Ace to the King.
- Tableau: eight columns of six face-up cards where all building happens.
- Free cells: eight single-card slots; the first four start filled.
- Foundations: four suit piles built up from Ace to King.
- Everything visible: no stock, no waste, no hidden cards.
Legal moves
Tableau builds run down by suit: the 7 of spades may only rest on the 8 of spades. A descending same-suit run can move as a unit when you have the cell capacity for it — one card per open cell, plus one.
Any top tableau card can park in an open cell. A cell card can return to the tableau under the same-suit rule, claim an empty column if it is a King, or go straight to its foundation.
Kings and empty columns
An empty column accepts only a King or a King-led same-suit run within your move capacity — unlike FreeCell, where any card may take an empty column.
That single restriction reshapes the game: emptying a column is only worth the moves when a useful King is ready to take it, so pick the destination before you dig.
Eight Off versus FreeCell
FreeCell tightened Eight Off's design: four cells instead of eight, alternating-color builds instead of same-suit, and empty columns open to any card.
Eight Off compensates for its stricter builds with double the cell space, and its supermove counts cells only — empty columns never multiply how many cards you can carry at once.