Spider Solitaire rules and how to play
Spider Solitaire is a two-deck solitaire game — 104 cards — and one of the most popular card games ever shipped on a computer. The goal is to build eight complete sequences from king down to ace, each in a single suit. When a sequence is complete it flies off the board; clear all eight and you win. You can play Spider now — the 1-suit game is the right place to learn.
What you need
Two standard 52-card decks with no jokers, shuffled together. Online, everything is dealt for you: ten tableau columns across the board and a stock in the corner holding the cards that have not been dealt yet. There are no free cells and no waste pile — Spider is just the ten columns and the stock.
Setting up the game
Fifty-four cards are dealt into the ten columns: the first four columns get six cards each, the remaining six columns get five each. Only the top card of each column is face-up. The other fifty cards wait in the stock, which will be dealt ten at a time — one card onto each column.
The moves
Spider has one building rule and one grouping rule, and the difference between them is the heart of the game.
Building: you may place a card on any card that is one rank higher, regardless of suit. A jack of hearts can go on a queen of spades. Descending order is all that is required.
Moving groups: you may only pick up and move a run of cards if it is descending and all one suit. A 9-8-7 of spades moves as a unit; a 9 of spades with an 8 of hearts on it does not — the 8 of hearts must move off first, alone.
That asymmetry is the whole game. Any-suit stacking is always allowed and often necessary, but every mixed-suit stack you build is a stack you will have to take apart one card at a time later. Same-suit runs stay mobile.
Two more rules:
- Empty columns accept anything. Any card or movable run can go on an empty column. (Unlike Klondike, there is no kings-only rule.) An empty column is the most valuable thing on a Spider board.
- Face-down cards flip when exposed. When you move the last face-up card off a column, the card underneath turns over.
The stock deal
When you run out of useful moves, click the stock. It deals ten cards, one face-up onto every column — including on top of any runs you have carefully built. There are five deals in the stock.
One restriction, and it matters: you cannot deal while any column is empty. Standard Spider rules require every column to hold at least one card before a deal. If you have an empty column, you must put something in it first — which is a real decision, because you are giving up the empty column to get ten new cards.
Completing a sequence
When a column contains a complete king-to-ace run in a single suit, the run is removed from the board automatically and stacked on a foundation. That is the only way cards leave the board. You need eight complete sequences — with two decks there are exactly eight suits’ worth of cards to clear.
Winning and losing
You win when all 104 cards are cleared into eight completed sequences. You lose when the stock is empty and no legal move improves anything. Games are lost far more often than Klondike: even 1-suit Spider punishes careless stacking, and 4-suit Spider is one of the hardest widely played solitaire games.
1 suit, 2 suits, 4 suits
The rules above never change — only the deck composition does:
- 1-suit Spider: all 104 cards are spades. Every descending run is automatically same-suit, so everything you build stays movable. This is the version to learn on, and it stays satisfying long after you have learned it.
- 2-suit Spider: spades and hearts. Now a red 8 on a black 9 is a stuck card. Roughly twice the planning.
- 4-suit Spider: all four suits, the full game. Wins here are earned, not expected — this is the version experienced players treat as the real challenge.
If you enjoy the family, Spiderette plays Spider’s rules with a single deck on a Klondike-style layout, and Scorpion keeps the same-suit building idea but deals almost everything face-up.
A worked example
Suppose a column shows a 10 of spades, and elsewhere you have a 9 of hearts and a 9 of spades both available. Either 9 is legal on the 10. But place the 9 of spades and the pair moves together forever after; place the 9 of hearts and you have created a little wall — nothing can move the 10 until the 9 of hearts leaves. When both options exist, suit always wins. When only the off-suit move exists, take it knowingly: you are trading future mobility for progress now.
Once the rules feel comfortable, the Spider strategy guide covers the habits that actually win games — empty columns, deal timing, and when breaking a same-suit run is correct.