FREECELL’S STRICTER ANCESTOR
Eight Off Solitaire
Play Eight Off solitaire free online — no download, no sign-up, works on any device. This is the elder branch of FreeCell’s family tree: eight columns, eight free cells (four of them already holding cards when the deal lands), building strictly in suit, kings alone allowed onto empty columns. Nearly every deal can be won — our solver proved winning lines on 97.7% of 1,000 random deals and could not prove a single one impossible — which makes Eight Off the purest test on this site of a simple claim: when you lose, it was not the cards.
- 52
- cards, all face up
- 8
- single-card cells
- ≥97.7%
- proven win-rate floor
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×67Learn Eight Off in 90 seconds: rules, cells and tips
The deal, building down in suit, how the eight cells set your moving power, and five habits that win more games. Full written rules follow below.
In this video
01 · THE TABLE
How Eight Off works
All 52 cards are face up from the first second: eight columns of six, and the four leftover cards start in four of your eight cells. Columns build down in suit — a 9♠ takes the 8♠ and nothing else. Each cell holds exactly one card, any card, any time there is room. An empty column accepts kings only (or a packed king-led run). Moving a packed in-suit run counts as moving its cards one at a time through spare cells, so the longest run you may move is empty cells plus one — with all eight cells free that is nine cards, with none it is one. That single line of arithmetic is the entire skill of the game.
→
A 7♠ may land on the 8♠.
↛A 7♥ may not land on the 8♠.
→Only a King or king-led run may fill an empty column.
02 · THE FAMILY TREE
Where Eight Off comes from
The in-suit branch of this family is the older one. Martin Gardner’s June 1968 Scientific American column described C. L. Baker’s cell game with in-suit building — and a decade later Paul Alfille, adapting it for the PLATO computer system, switched the building rule to alternating colors and called his version FreeCell. Eight Off is the in-suit game at full width: twice the cells, the classical kings-only rule for spaces, and the stricter suit discipline FreeCell relaxed. Play them back to back and you can feel the fork in the road: FreeCell spreads risk across colors; Eight Off concentrates it — each suit is its own private traffic jam, and the cells are the only overpass.
03 · THE EVIDENCE
Nearly every deal is winnable. So why do people lose?
Across 1,000 random deals our solver proved winning lines on 977 — a 97.7% floor — proved none impossible, and simply ran out of its two-million-position budget on the remaining 23; those could fall either way, so 97.7% is the floor we can prove, not the total. The average best line banked more than 51 of the 52 cards. The honest answer to the second half: capacity mismanagement. Every loss in Eight Off is a story about cells that silted up — cards parked with no landing spot waiting, until the flat capacity rule (empty cells + 1) strangled every remaining supermove. The deal hands you four pre-parked cards precisely to start that pressure early. Winning is not about finding brilliant moves; it is about refusing to make the cheap one that costs a cell. Real human win rates will appear on our win-rates page once enough games are logged here.
04 · THE ARITHMETIC
Strategy: arithmetic before elegance
Before any dig, count it: freeing a card buried under k cards needs k spare slots — cells or legal landing spots — and every one you fill drops your supermove ceiling by one for as long as it stays full. So the doctrine is mechanical. Empty cells beat full ones: bank or place a parked card the moment a home exists. The four dealt cell cards are your opening project — each one you clear is permanent capacity gained. And treat empty columns as king-shaped: opening a lane with no king ready to claim it usually just moved your problem sideways. In-suit building means every card has exactly one home under it and one card that will ever sit on it — trace both before you commit.
05 · PLAY THE LESSON
Two fixed deals. Two Eight Off instincts.
Both lessons use the real game engine and solver-proven winning deals. First release the exposed Aces; then count enough empty cells for a four-card in-suit supermove.
01 Release two Aces The lineage lesson, playable: this real deal is provably winnable — our solver holds a full winning line — and it opens the way Baker’s in-suit game always has, with the suits doing the talking. Both Aces sit exposed on their column tops, so the first two moves can bank them both. +
02 Move four cards together The arithmetic section’s homework, on a provably winnable deal: our solver holds the full line, and its tenth move is a four-card in-suit supermove. Capacity is empty cells plus one, so four cards travel only when three cells are free — count your slots to four before you try. +
06 · THE HABITS
Five habits that win more Eight Off games
Eight Off punishes clutter, not daring. These habits keep the arithmetic on your side.
- 01Count before digging
Count before you dig: a card under k cards costs k slots to reach — if you cannot count them free right now, dig somewhere else.
- 02Unload cells
Unload cells greedily: every parked card is minus one on every future supermove, and the interest compounds.
- 03Clear the dealt four
The four dealt cell cards come first — clearing them is pure capacity profit, and they start on the clock.
- 04Prepare a king
Never open a column without a king ready: an empty lane you cannot legally fill is a trophy, not a tool.
- 05Trace the suit
Bank with a glance at the suit below: in-suit building means the 6♦ you bank was the only seat the 5♦ will ever have.
07 · QUICK ANSWERS
Eight Off FAQ
01Is every Eight Off deal winnable?+
Very nearly — 977 of 1,000 random deals proven winnable (97.7%), zero proven impossible, and 23 left undecided when the search budget ran out — so the honest claim is the floor itself: at least 97.7%. Deals here are honestly random, no pre-filtered pool; when a game slips away it is almost always recoverable with an earlier undo, which is exactly what makes the game a fair fight.
02What is the difference between Eight Off and FreeCell?+
Three rules and a lineage: Eight Off builds in suit (FreeCell alternates colors), fields eight cells with four dealt full (FreeCell: four, all empty), and admits kings only to empty columns (FreeCell: any card). The supermove arithmetic differs too — Eight Off’s capacity is flat cells-plus-one, with no bonus for empty columns. FreeCell is Eight Off’s younger, more forgiving descendant.
03How big a run can I move at once?+
Empty cells plus one — the whole rule. Eight free cells let nine cards travel together; zero free cells means single cards only. Unlike FreeCell, empty columns do not multiply the number: the capacity is flat, which is why cell hygiene decides games.
04Why can’t I put an ordinary card on an empty column?+
Kings only — the classical space rule this branch of the family kept and FreeCell dropped. It makes empty columns rarer prizes: an open lane is only worth what the king you have ready can bring with it.
05Why do four cards start in the cells?+
The deal is 52 cards into 48 tableau slots — eight columns of six — so the last four go straight to cells. It is the game’s built-in handicap: your capacity starts at five, not nine, and earning the rest back is the opening puzzle.
06How do the hints work?+
The Hint button runs a real search solver on your actual position — the same standard as our FreeCell and Forty Thieves hints. When it proves a winning line within its budget, every hint follows that line move for move; otherwise it points at the strongest continuation it found. Honest advice, not certification.