How do you play Freecell?

Cornucopia

Or, more specifically - how do YOU play Freecell?

Freecell is the solitaire game that has been on MS Windows machines for years. It apparently has some fairly complicated maths behind solving it, and computer solution algorithms are correspondingly long, complex and fallible.

At the same time, many human players play it quite happily and probably don't even break a sweat in doing so.

So, what is your technique for playing the game? How much do you think your technique depends on very human skills like intuition and mass pattern-matching, and how much on computer-type techniques of stacking, swapping, counting, etc.?

torbrex

I don't even think about the game, I just play it as I see it and the moves seem to come automatically to me

It's a lot easier than it used to be now that it has multiple undo's.

Cornucopia

Yes, that's what I mean by "intuition".

I found this online version after I upgraded to Win10...

http://www.247freecell.com/

It's got automatic moves on it, which makes playing faster, but my fastest time to solve a whole game is less than 2 minutes, and playing at that speed can't possibly involve applying a traditional algorithm.

EssexExile

Algorithms, maths, pattern-matching, technique...? It's just something I do while both my computer & I gird our loins for some more taxing processes, like checking my Facebook page.