How to play Spider Solitaire

Two packs, ten columns, eight suits to clear — the deep end of solitaire, in one, two or four suits.

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Spider is played with two decks and is the solitaire that most rewards planning, because unlike Klondike almost nothing is hidden from you by chance alone — the difficulty comes from the order you choose to do things in.

The layout

104 cards are dealt into ten columns. The first four columns get six cards and the remaining six get five, for fifty-four cards in total, with only the last card of each column face up. The other fifty cards stay in the stock and are dealt out five rows at a time, one card to every column.

Building versus moving

These are two different rules and confusing them is the main source of frustration. You may *place* a card on any card exactly one rank higher regardless of suit — a spade six onto a heart seven is fine. But you may only *move a group* when it is a descending run of the same suit. So mixed-suit stacks are legal, useful, and a trap: they let you park a card now at the cost of freezing everything beneath it.

Completing a run

A full King-to-Ace sequence in a single suit is removed from the board automatically and counts as one of the eight you need. Clearing all eight wins the game. Because removal frees the whole column beneath, engineering one completed run often unlocks two or three moves' worth of progress elsewhere.

The deal, and the empty-column rule

Clicking the stock deals one card to every column at once — including on top of a run you were carefully assembling, which is why dealing is a decision rather than a formality. The game will not deal while any column is empty, so an empty column must be spent before you can draw. With five deals available and ten columns, the stock is exactly fifty cards and runs out; the endgame is played entirely on what is already on the table.

Difficulty levels

One suit is a gentle introduction to the movement rules. Two suits is the standard game and roughly where skill starts to dominate luck. Four suits is a serious puzzle — win rates for strong players sit well under half, and a four-suit deal will punish any group you moved without a plan for unpacking it.

Controls

Drag a descending same-suit run with the mouse or your finger.

Tap or double-click a card to move it to the best column. Click the deck to deal a row.
N new game, U undo, D deal.

Strategy tips

Prefer same-suit placements even when a mixed-suit one is available. Every mixed junction is a wall you will have to dismantle later.
Empty a column early if you can. An empty column is the most valuable thing in Spider — it is a workspace, not a target to fill.
Before dealing, look at every column top. A deal that lands on top of your only ordered run can cost more than the five cards gain you.
Unstack the column with the most face-down cards when the choice is otherwise even; information is the scarce resource.
Do not break an ordered same-suit run to make a single legal move unless it opens a face-down card or an empty column.
Aces are dead weight — they build on nothing. Move them out of the way early rather than letting one sit on top of a column you need.
On four suits, plan the whole sequence before your first move of a turn. Undo freely; the deal is fixed, so exploration costs nothing but time.