Spider Solitaire

Spider: the big one-player game that plays like a puzzle

Spider is what happens when solitaire stops being a way to pass five minutes and becomes something you actually have to think about. It uses two full decks — 104 cards — and unlike Klondike there are no foundation piles you build as you go. Nothing leaves the table until you've assembled a complete, unbroken run from King down to Ace in a single suit, at which point the whole run flies off at once. Do that eight times and you've won. Fail to plan for it and the board slowly concretes over until nothing can move at all.

Where Spider comes from

Spider shows up in patience books in the early twentieth century, and the name is older than any computer: the game has eight foundations to fill — one per completed run — and a spider has eight legs. Its most famous devotee was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was known to unwind with Spider in the White House; a 1949 book on the game leaned on that association hard enough to market Spider as "the King of Solitaires." Like Klondike before it, though, what turned Spider from a connoisseur's game into a household name was Microsoft: it shipped with the Microsoft Plus! pack for Windows 98 and then with Windows ME and XP, where its three difficulty levels gave it something Klondike never had — a reason to keep climbing. Plenty of people who've never touched a real deck of cards have strong opinions about four-suit Spider.

The objective

Remove all 104 cards from the tableau by building eight complete runs, each one a full sequence from King down to Ace in a single suit. A run is only removed when it's finished and unbroken — there's no partial credit, and no foundation pile to park an Ace on early. Everything happens in the ten tableau columns.

Setup

• The tableau is ten columns dealt from two shuffled decks. The first four columns get six cards each, the remaining six columns get five — 54 cards in all. Only the top card of each column starts face up.
• The stock holds the other 50 cards, dealt in five batches of ten — one new face-up card onto every column each time you deal.
• The number of suits is the difficulty dial. One-suit Spider uses eight copies of spades; two-suit uses spades and hearts; four-suit uses two full decks as printed. The rules never change — only how often suits get in your way.

How a turn works

1. Build downward, any suit. A card can move onto any card one rank higher, regardless of suit or color — a 9 of hearts sits happily on a 10 of clubs.
2. But move groups only in suit. Several cards move together only if they form a descending run in the same suit. That 9 of hearts on the 10 of clubs is stuck being moved one card at a time; a 9 and 8 of hearts travel as a unit. This asymmetry — easy to place, hard to move — is the entire game.
3. Empty columns take anything. Any card or movable run can start a fresh column. Empty columns are Spider's workspace, and nearly all your maneuvering room comes from them.
4. Deal when you're stuck — clicking the stock adds one card to every column. The classic rule, enforced here: you can't deal while any column is empty. Fill every gap first.
5. Finished runs leave on their own. The moment a King-to-Ace same-suit sequence comes together face up, it's cleared from the table and the card beneath it turns over.

Scoring

Spider's traditional computer scoring — the one Microsoft used, and the one this board keeps — starts you at 500 points, subtracts one point for every move, and awards 100 for each completed run. A perfect game is theoretically 1,254 points (500 + 800 − 46, since 46 moves is the proven minimum for a maximally lucky deal), but anything above 1,000 is an excellent game and most wins land in the 900s. As with all solitaire scoring, the number is really a politeness — the real question is whether you cleared the board at all.

One suit, two suits, or four?

• One suit removes the suit constraint on moving groups (every card is a spade, so every descending run moves freely). It's the right place to learn the deal rhythm and empty-column habits — most deals are winnable with a little care.
• Two suits is the sweet spot for most players: off-suit builds become real decisions with real costs, but the board stays manageable.
• Four suits is one of the hardest widely played solitaires. Nearly every deal is winnable in theory, but honest win rates for strong players sit far below half — losing regularly is part of the deal, not a sign you're playing badly.

Strategy that actually matters

• Turn over face-down cards before anything else. Every hidden card is information you don't have and a card you can't use. Given a choice between a tidy-looking build and a move that flips a card, flip the card.
• Build in suit whenever you can, even when off-suit is available. An off-suit placement is a loan you'll repay with interest: the cards above the break must be moved singly before the run underneath can go anywhere.
• Empty a column early and guard it jealously. An empty column lets you unstack awkward piles, rotate runs into suit order, and rescue cards buried under off-suit builds. With two empty columns you can rearrange almost anything; with none you can only watch.
• Delay dealing as long as you have useful moves. Each deal drops ten new cards on top of your work, burying every carefully arranged run one card deeper. Squeeze the current layout dry first.
• Keep Kings out of empty columns unless you mean it. Nothing plays on top of a King except by choice, and a King in a fresh column claims your most valuable space for the rest of the game. Prefer moving middle cards you can build both ways from.
• Break up high-card stacks before the stock runs out. Once the last deal is down, what's buried stays buried unless you can dig it out with the space you saved.

Common variations

Households and apps vary a few rules, so it's worth knowing which version you're playing. Some implementations relax the deal rule and let you deal onto empty columns — noticeably easier, and worth checking before comparing win rates with a friend. Spiderette shrinks the game to one deck dealt in a Klondike-style seven-column triangle, keeping Spider's build-and-move rules — a good fit when a full Spider game is more time than you have.Relaxed Spider allows any face-up descending run to move regardless of suit, which turns even four-suit deals into a much gentler puzzle. This page plays the classic rules: same-suit moves only, no dealing over gaps.

Frequently asked questions

Why won't the game let me deal from the stock?

One of your columns is empty. The classic rule requires every column to hold at least one card before a deal — move something (anything) into the gap first. It's a real constraint, not a bug: deciding what to sacrifice into an empty column right before a deal is one of Spider's recurring dilemmas.

Why can't I move this stack? The cards are in order.

In order isn't enough — they have to be in order and in the same suit. A red 7 sitting on a black 8 placed there earlier is a legal build but not a movable one. You'll need to peel the off-suit cards off one at a time onto other columns.

Is every Spider deal winnable?

At one and two suits, the overwhelming majority of deals can be won with careful play. At four suits, computer analysis suggests nearly all deals are technically solvable with perfect information — but as in Klondike, a human playing honestly (no peeking at face-down cards, no unlimited undo) wins far less often. Spider also lets you lose winnable games in a way Klondike rarely does: one careless deal over a disorganized board can be unrecoverable ten moves later.

Do completed runs come back into play?

No. Once a King-to-Ace run is cleared it's out of the game for good — which is exactly why finishing one feels so much better than any single move in Klondike.

Which suit count should I start with?

Start at one suit until dealing and empty-column management feel automatic, then move to two. Treat four-suit Spider as its own long-term project — even experienced players keep a two-suit game around for when they want to win.