Spider Solitaire

How to Play Spider Solitaire

Spider Solitaire is played with two full decks — 104 cards — dealt into ten tableau columns. Four columns get six cards and six columns get five; only the last card of each column starts face up, and the remaining 50 cards sit in the stock as five deals of ten. There are no foundation piles to build up: in Spider you assemble complete sequences right inside the tableau.

Columns build downward in rank, and for placing a card the suit does not matter — a nine of clubs will happily sit on a ten of hearts. What the suit decides is what you can pick up. Only a face-up run of cards in the same suit, in unbroken descending order, moves as a single unit. Anything else has to be moved one card at a time, which is exactly what makes a badly mixed column so hard to unpick. Any movable run can go onto a card one rank higher, or into an empty column.

Every time you lift the last face-up card off a column, the card underneath turns over — that is the real currency of Spider, because hidden cards are the only information you are missing. When a column ends in a complete King down to Ace in one suit, that sequence lifts off the board to a completed pile. Build all eight and the game is won.

When you are stuck, tap the stock to deal a fresh card onto every column. There is one catch, and it is the rule that surprises new players: you cannot deal while any column is empty. Fill the gaps first. Choose 1 suit to learn the rhythm, 2 suits once suit-matching feels natural, and 4 suits when you want the full two-deck challenge — the game remembers whichever you pick.

Strategy Tips for Spider Solitaire

• Turn cards over first. Between two equally legal moves, take the one that exposes a face-down card. Information beats tidiness almost every time.
• Build in suit whenever you can. An off-suit stack looks organised but freezes solid — you can only move it one card at a time. Same-suit joins are what give you big, portable blocks later.
• Guard your empty columns. An empty column is the most valuable square on the board: it accepts any card, lets you break a mixed pile apart, and is the one thing that unlocks a new deal. Don't spend one on a move you could make elsewhere.
• Dig out the shortest column. The fastest route to an empty column is the pile with the fewest hidden cards — clear that one before it collects more.
• Think before you deal. Each deal drops ten fresh cards on top of everything, burying tidy work. Exhaust your board moves, then deal.
• Use Undo freely. Spider rewards experimenting. Follow a line, see where it jams, back up and try the other order — that is how good players find winning paths through hard hands.

Spider deals here are shuffled at random, so — unlike FreeCell — not every hand can be won, and that is normal even for strong players. If a hand dead-ends, restart the same deal and try a different order, or take a fresh one.

Want a gentler game between rounds? Play classic Klondike Solitaire, test your planning in FreeCell, or take a quick run through Golf Solitaire — all free, right in your browser. Our guide to winning Solitaire in fewer moves covers the planning habits that carry straight over to Spider.