Most people understand the Freecell rules, but not everyone understands

Freecell PowerMoves. Understanding PowerMoves is one of the most important keys to earning Freecell, and knowing how they work will increase your chances of earning Freecell.

A Freecell powermove (also called a supermove), is simply a shortcut move. Leaves

you move a sequence of cards in one move, instead of doing many

does it move.

However, it is not a special move.

It’s just a shortcut, to move all the cards in sequence in one move, instead of

various movements using available free cells and empty columns.

The number of cards you can move in a super move sequence is based on how many

Free cells and empty columns are available. Some freecells games implement this

incorrectly, and allows you to move any number of cards in a sequence.

But this is wrong. If you couldn’t move the sequence using individual card moves,

so you can’t move the sequence using a powermove either.

A free cell supermove uses empty columns and free cells as efficiently as

possible, to make sure you can move the maximum number of cards. To find out how

many cards can be moved, the following formula is used:

(1 + number of empty free cells) * 2 ^ (number of empty columns)

This is easier to understand by looking at the following chart:

Empty Columns		Empty Freecells		Card Sequence Length

0			0				1

0			1				2

0			2				3

0			3				4

0			4				5

1			0				2

1			1				4

1			2				6

1			3				8

1			4				10

2			0				4

2			1				8

2			2				12

2			3				16

2			4				20

This assumes that you are moving the sequence to a non-empty column. If you are

moving to an empty column then the column you are moving to does not count

as an empty column.

A free cell powermove can always be divided into several individual movements.

Suppose you have 1 empty column and 1 empty free cell. From the table above

We can see that we can move a sequence of 4 cards. Suppose we want to move 9,8,7,6

sequence in a 10. The movements would proceed as follows:

• Move the 6 to the free cell (now an empty column, no empty free cells)
• Move the 7 to the empty column (now no empty columns and no empty free cells)
• Move 6 to 7 (now there are no empty columns and an empty free cell)
• Move the 8 to the free cell (now no empty columns or empty free cells) li>
• Move 9 to 10 (now no empty columns and no empty free cells)
• Move 8 to 9 (now there are no empty columns and an empty free cell)
• Move the 6 to the free cell (now no empty column, no empty free cells)
• Move 7 to 8 (now an empty column and no empty free cells)
• Move 6 to 7 (now an empty column and an empty free cell)

So in this example the powermove has saved us time by allowing us to make 1 move

instead of 9.

There are a few things to keep in mind in this example:

• Free cells and empty columns are used temporarily. At the end of the powermove, the number of free cells and empty columns is the same as at the beginning of the powermove.
• Free cells and empty columns are used as efficiently as possible. There is no way more cards have been moved.
• Only empty free cells and empty columns were used. Cards from other stacks were NOT used as temporary storage spaces.

This last point is particularly noteworthy. A super move will only use free cells

and empty columns. It does not take into account any other cards in the box. This

means that you can often move a longer sequence by breaking doing the moves

yourself, or doing various power moves.

In the example above, if there was a spare 9 in the box with the correct color,

a much longer sequence could have been moved. The sequence 8,7,6 would be

passed the other 9 first. Then we could move another 4 cards using a

powermove (because we still have an empty column and a free cell). Then we could now

move 9,10, J, Q to a King, and then move 8,7,6 to 9 again. Then by

dividing the sequence into 2 movements, we can move a sequence of 7

instead of 4.

Being aware of this deficiency of super moves will allow you to move longer

sequences, which goes a long way toward winning some of the toughest freecell deals.

The other thing to keep in mind with supermoves is how important empty columns are.

is it so. If you look back at the above chart, you will see that the empty columns are very

valuable in freecell. Four empty free cells allow you to move a sequence of 5 movements,

While two empty free cells and two empty columns allow you to move a sequence of 12!

Try to empty the columns as soon as possible!