Championship Freecell
Competition
To compete with other players you play Championship Freecell games on your own computer, and then upload your scores to our web site (see application help file).
Games, Groups, and Sectors
Each of the individual games is a separate competition, and each game may have a current game holder, the player who has posted a solution to that game using the fewest number of free cells. If two or more players have posted solutions with the same number of free cells, then the solution using the fewest total card-moves is the winner. If two players happen to use the same number of free cells and card-moves (a rarity) then the first to post their solution is the winner. Games for which no one has posted a solution are open games. Any solution to an open game automatically makes you the game holder until someone posts a better one.
The site provides a complete listing of all games currently in competition, along with the game holder for each game. Check out the Competition Stats link. To help keep track of the large number of games, we organize games into game groups of 50 games each. Game groups are also areas for competition. Each game group has a leader and a lieutenant. The leader is the player who holds the most games in a given game group; the lieutenant is the player holding the second largest number of games in a game
group. Anyone can unseat a current leader or lieutenant by winning more games than them. The best way to do this is to post better solutions for the games the leader or lieutenant currently hold.
Ties between two players holding the same number of games in a group are resolved by totaling the number of free cells used by each player in the games they hold, and picking the player with the smallest total number of freecells used. In the rare event that two players hold the same number of games using the same total number of free cells, the player with the smallest total number of card-moves is chosen.
For the truly dedicated, we also organize game groups into game sectors of 10 groups each. Each sector has a president and vice president, based on the number of groups held within the sector. We release games for competition one sector at a time.
Each sector is identified by a number, as is each group within a sector and each game within a group. Thus each game is uniquely identified by its sector, group, and game number, usually separated by slashes. Game 3/8/24 is sector 3, group 8, game 24. To check out some sector and group listings, try our Competition Stats pages.
Personalized Player Pages and Recent Winner Lists
Each player participating on the site has a publicly available personalized page showing the games they hold and their victories by group and sector. Any time a player is mentioned in the Competition Stats pages their name provides a link to their personalized page. You may note that some pages include medallion-like decorations. These are pages of players who have won groups or sectors. You may also directly access any player's page via the Lookup Player link from our home page.
You also get recognition on our home page every time you win a game, group, or sector. The recent winners list shows the 10 most recent winners in each of these categories. (See Recent Winners.) Also, if you give us your Web home page URL and you win a group or sector, we'll provide a link to your home page on your personalized page and on the competition page for each group and sector that you hold.
Ratings and Site Standing
By going to your personal page (via Lookup Player) you can view your rating and your standing. Our point system and ratings are explained on our Ratings page. Your standing is determined by your rating and shows your performance relative to all of the other players on the site.
Player Categories
We want to be sure that our players all have a chance to play against other players of the same ability. Therefore, we divide players into player categories, such as beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert. You will be automatically placed in the beginner category when you register. You will automatically be moved into higher categories as you win games.
Each new sector is given first to the beginners. Once they've had a chance, then we let intermediates play in the sector, followed by advanced and then expert players.
If you like, you may set up a category of your own, with sectors reserved only for that category. If you have a group of friends who like Freecell, and you all would like to play Championship Freecell as a private group, check out our Category Sponsor program.
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