One card sets the terms

Penguin Solitaire

A FreeCell-shaped game with seven cells instead of four — and a first card, the beak, that decides where every foundation starts and which single rank may ever fill an empty column.

Seven flipper cells
The beak sets the rank
Build down in suit
Nothing hidden

Foundations3/52

Flippers0

Moves0

Beak-

Flipper cells

Foundations

Beak -Empty columns start with -

Free the beak and build the foundations around.

The beak sets the rank

Penguin Solitaire rules

The board shows you the beak rank and the space rank. Everything else follows from them.

Penguin Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Deck	One standard 52-card deck, every card face up.
The beak	The very first card dealt. Its rank governs the whole game.
Head start	The other three cards of the beak's rank are placed at the head of columns, and three foundations open immediately.
Tableau	Seven columns of seven cards.
Flipper cells	Seven, all empty. Each holds one card.
Moving cards
On a column	One rank lower and the same suit.
Sequences	A descending same-suit run can travel together, limited by free cells and spaces.
A flipper cell	Takes any single card and holds it until you take it out.
An empty column	Takes only the rank one below the beak — nothing else may start a column.
To a foundation	Start at the beak rank and climb in suit, wrapping past the king.
Winning
Each foundation	Thirteen cards, from the beak rank round to the rank just below it.
Win condition	All four suits complete.
Losing	No legal move remains. There is no stock and no redeal.

Seven cells, one space rank

How to play Penguin Solitaire

The first card off the deck is the beak. Its three siblings — the other cards of that rank — are pulled to the head of columns as the deal proceeds, so the game opens with three foundations already started and the fourth waiting on the beak itself.

Forty-nine cards fill seven columns of seven, all face up. Seven flipper cells sit above, each able to hold one card. Columns build down in suit, runs travel together as far as your free cells and empty columns allow, and foundations climb in suit from the beak rank, wrapping past the king.

One rule catches everyone: an empty column accepts only the rank one below the beak. Not kings, not anything — one rank, four cards in the deck.

One rank is both your key and your final card. With a beak of seven, the sixes fill empty columns and are also the thirteenth card of every foundation. That overlap is gentler than it sounds — a six spent on a space is a card you did not need until the end anyway — but it does mean the four sixes are the most contested cards on the table.

Cells and spaces

What the cells and the space rank allow

Legal and illegal Penguin moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A column shows the 9♥. You move the 8♥ on to it.	Legal	Down by exact suit — the only tableau packing rule.
A column shows the 9♥. You move the 8♦ on to it.	Illegal	Red is not enough. Penguin wants the suit.
You move a card into an empty flipper cell.	Legal	Any card, any time, one per cell.
The beak is a 7. A column empties. You move a 6 into it.	Legal	Empty columns take only the rank below the beak.
The beak is a 7. A column empties. You move a king into it.	Illegal	Kings have no privilege here. The space wants a six.
A ♠ foundation began on the 7 and shows the K. You play the A♠.	Legal	Foundations wrap past the king and carry on.
You move a five-card same-suit run with no free cells.	Illegal	How much you can move at once depends on your empty cells and columns.

Why seven cells is not as generous as it sounds

Strict suit packing eats the extra room

FreeCell gives you four cells and lets you pack by alternating colour, so any card has two possible landing spots. Penguin gives you seven cells and demands an exact suit match, which leaves one.

Halving the landing spots while adding three cells is close to a wash, and the deals feel it: cells fill quickly because there is so often nowhere on the tableau for a card to go. The extra cells are not spare capacity, they are compensation — which is why treating them as storage rather than as transit space is the fastest way to lose.

Spending the cells

Penguin Solitaire strategy

Free the beak's column first. Until the beak itself reaches a foundation, one suit cannot start at all, and the game opens with three of the four already moving.

Keep at least two cells open. Sequence moves depend on free cells and empty columns, so a full row of cells does not just cost you storage — it cuts how many cards you can move at once down to one.

Note the space rank before your first move. The board displays it. Knowing which four cards can open a column changes which column is worth emptying.

Build long suited runs where you can. Because packing is suit-strict, a properly assembled run moves as a unit and is worth far more than the same cards scattered.

Three cell mistakes

Where Penguin deals are thrown away

Filling all seven cells early

Seven flipper cells feels like an enormous amount of room, and it is — right up until every one holds a card that has nowhere to go. Cells are for cards in transit, not for storage. A card parked in a cell with no route back out has cost you a seventh of your working space for the rest of the deal.

Emptying a column with no space-rank card in reach

Only one rank in the whole deck can start an empty column, and there are four of them. Clear a column while all four are buried and you have made a hole you cannot use — worse than the column you had, because the cards that were in it are now somewhere else.

Reading the foundations as ace to king

The beak sets the base. If it is a 7, every foundation runs 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A, 2 and finishes on the 6. Players who hunt for aces early are chasing a middling card, not a key one.

Odds with seven cells

Is Penguin Solitaire winnable?

Often — it is one of the more winnable open games, and considerably kinder than Seahaven Towers, which asks for the same suit packing on four cells rather than seven.

Everything is face up and there is no stock, so a lost deal is a lost decision rather than bad luck. We do not publish a win rate: for the cell games the figure moves sharply with the cell count and the space rule, and Penguin's combination is unusual enough that borrowed numbers would not apply.

This version

Seven cells, beak-set foundations, one space rank

One deck, all face up: seven columns of seven and seven single-card flipper cells.
The first card dealt is the beak and fixes the foundation base rank.
Its three siblings head columns, opening three foundations at the deal.
Columns build down in suit; runs move as free cells and spaces allow.
Empty columns accept only the rank one below the beak.
Foundations climb in suit from the beak, wrapping past the king. No stock, no redeal.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score.

Cells elsewhere

Penguin among the cell games

Four open games with free cells and no stock. The two columns that decide how they play are the packing rule and what may enter an empty column.

Penguin compared with FreeCell, Eight Off, and Seahaven Towers
Game	Cells	Tableau building	Empty columns	Foundations start at
Penguin	7	Down in suit	Only the rank below the beak	Set by the first card dealt
FreeCell	4	Down, alternating colour	Any card	Always the ace
Eight Off	8	Down in suit	Kings only	Always the ace
Seahaven Towers	4	Down in suit	Kings only	Always the ace

Penguin is the only row where the last column says anything other than "the ace" — and the only one whose empty-column rule changes from deal to deal. Eight Off is the closest match on packing, with one more cell and kings for its spaces.

Explore

More solitaire games

The other free-cell games, from four cells to eight.

Tested rules

How this solitaire game is checked

Game logic is implemented and tested by Brian Hamilton, then reviewed by Karan Hamilton for rule clarity, player flow, and correction notes.

How we make and test solitaire games