How to play Spider Solitaire
Spider Solitaire is played with two full decks — 104 cards — in ten columns. Your job is to sort the whole lot into eight runs from King down to Ace, each in a single suit. A finished run lifts off the table by itself.
Choose 1 suit for a gentle sort, 2 suits for a proper game, or 4 suits when you want the real thing. Undo is unlimited.
Rules
- 54 cards are dealt into ten columns (six in the first four, five in the rest) with only the bottom card face up. The other 50 wait in the stock, five deals of ten.
- Any card can go on a card exactly one rank higher, whatever its suit: a 6 of hearts on a 7 of spades is fine.
- You can move several cards at once only when they form a run of the same suit in descending order.
- Any card or same-suit run can go into an empty column.
- When a column holds King to Ace of one suit, that run is removed. Clear all eight to win.
- Click the stock to deal one face-up card onto every column. As in the classic game, you can’t deal while any column is empty.
- Scoring follows the old Windows version: you start on 500, every move (and every undo) costs a point, and each completed run is worth 100.
Controls
- Drag
- Move a card or a same-suit run
- Click / tap a card
- Send it and the cards below it to the best spot
- Click the stock / D / Space
- Deal a new row
- ← → ↑ ↓, Enter
- Pick a column and run length from the keyboard, then move it
- U / Ctrl+Z
- Undo
- A
- Auto-finish once the stock is spent, every card is face up and the rest is just joining runs
- N
- New deal
- 1 / 2 / 4
- Switch suit count (starts a new deal)
Tips
- Building in suit is worth far more than building at all: a mixed run is stuck together until you unpick it.
- Empty columns are your most valuable resource. Use one to shuffle runs around before filling it for good.
- Before dealing, make every move that turns a hidden card over — a deal buries all ten columns at once.
- Kings can only go into empty columns, so a King near the top of a column is less of a problem than one buried deep.
Spider Solitaire strategy
Move mixed runs in pieces
Only a single-suit run moves as one, but an empty column lets you move more. Say the 8 and 7 of hearts sit on a 9 of spades and you want all three on a 10. Put the hearts in the empty column, move the 9 across, then bring the hearts back onto it. Two empty columns let you split a run into more pieces still. Do these shuffles before you fill the space for good.
Get ready for each deal
A deal drops one card on all ten columns, and you can’t deal while a column is empty. Before you click the stock, make every same-suit join you can and turn over every hidden card in reach. If a column is empty, fill it with whatever does least harm: ideally a King and its run, since a King can never go anywhere but an empty column, otherwise a short run you can lift off again.
Suit beats rank
When two cards could take the one you are moving, choose the one of the same suit. Tapping a card does this for you: it looks for a same-suit home first, then any card one higher, then an empty column. In 2 and 4 suits, a column ending in a long mixed sequence is a warning. Start unpicking it while you still have space, before the next deal covers it with another card.
Recovering a blocked table
When nothing useful moves, find the column with the fewest cards above its deepest face-down card and spend moves there, even out of suit. One empty column is often enough to get the game going again. If the table is truly locked, undo back past the last deal. The stock deals the same cards in the same order every time, so you now know exactly what is coming and can prepare the columns for it.
About Spider Solitaire
Spider is a two-deck patience game; the earliest printed rules usually cited are in Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith’s 1949 collection of solitaire games. It reached most people half a century later, when Microsoft added a Spider game to the Plus! 98 pack for Windows 98 and then shipped it with Windows Me and XP, with the one-, two- and four-suit levels that are still the standard way to play.
This version keeps those rules and that scoring, including the classic restriction on dealing with an empty column. We added tap-to-move, unlimited undo, an auto-finish for the tidy endgame, and separate win rates, best times and streaks for each suit count.
Questions
Which Spider Solitaire level should I play?
Start with 1 suit: every card is a spade, so any run you build can be moved and completed. 2 suits is a real challenge, and 4 suits is hard enough that experienced players lose plenty of deals even with undo.
Why can’t I deal from the stock?
Classic Spider doesn’t let you deal while any column is empty. Put a card or a run into the empty column first, then deal.
Can I undo in Spider Solitaire?
Yes, as often as you like, including deals: press U or Ctrl+Z. Each undo costs a point, as in the original scoring.
How is Spider Solitaire scored?
You start with 500 points. Each move costs one point and each completed King-to-Ace run earns 100. Your best times are ranked separately for 1, 2 and 4 suits.