Most people met Spider Solitaire on a Windows PC, played it on one suit for a decade, and then tried the four-suit version once and decided it was impossible. It isn't impossible. It is a different game from Klondike, and almost nothing you learned there carries over. Spider is not about getting cards home. It is about empty columns, about keeping suits together, and about the five moments when you have to decide whether to deal.
How does Spider Solitaire work?
Spider uses two full decks, 104 cards. Fifty-four are dealt into ten columns (six cards in the first four columns, five in the other six), with only the top card of each column face up; the remaining fifty wait in the stock, enough for five deals of ten. You build columns downward by rank, and any suit can sit on any suit for that purpose. But you can only pick up and move a group of cards if they form a descending run in a single suit. When a column holds a complete run from King down to Ace in one suit, that run lifts off the table on its own. Clear eight of them and you have won.
How to play Spider Solitaire (step by step)
- Look at the ten face-up cards and make every move that puts a card on the next rank up in the same suit.
- Flip face-down cards whenever a move exposes one; new information is worth more than a tidy stack.
- Work toward emptying a column, then use it as a workspace to re-sort mixed runs into single-suit runs.
- When no useful move is left, refill any empty column and deal ten new cards from the stock.
- Keep assembling same-suit runs; a full King-to-Ace run leaves the table automatically.
- Clear all eight runs before the stock and your options run out.
Empty columns are the whole game
In Klondike an empty column is a parking spot for a King. In Spider it is the most powerful thing on the table, because an empty column accepts any card. That is what lets you take a column that reads 9 of hearts, 8 of spades, 7 of hearts and untangle it: move the 7 to the empty column, move the 8 onto something else, put the 7 back on the 9. With two empty columns you can rebuild almost anything. Without one, every mixed-suit stack you build is a lock you are choosing to close.
So the early game has one aim: pick the column you can empty fastest and dig it out. Usually that is one of the five-card columns, since there is less underneath. Once you have the space, do not fill it with the first card that fits. Spend it on the move that frees a face-down card or completes a same-suit run, and empty it again as soon as you can.
Same suit or nothing
The game will let you drop a red 6 on a black 7. It is often the right call for one reason, to flip the card underneath, and the wrong call for every other reason. A mixed-suit stack cannot be moved as a group, so every card that lands on top of it is buried until you have the empty columns to peel it apart. The habit that separates people who win at two suits from people who don't is simple: build in one suit by default, go off-suit only to expose a face-down card, and try to repair the damage before the next deal covers it.
When to deal from the stock
Each deal drops ten cards, one on every column, and every one of them lands on top of whatever you have built. That is why the rule of thumb is to deal only after you have made every move that helps. Tidy the runs, flip everything you can flip, get a column empty if it is close. Then deal.
There is one catch our version enforces exactly as the traditional rules do: you cannot deal while any column is empty. You have to put something there first. Make it count. A King is the natural choice, since a King can never sit on anything else, and the top card of your longest same-suit run is the next best, because it will be easy to move again later. What you should never do is fill the space with a lone low card just to get the deal button back.
1 suit, 2 suits, 4 suits: what actually changes
On one suit every card matches every other card, so the suit rule never bites and the game becomes pure sequencing: empty a column, sort, repeat. It is the right place to learn the rhythm, and nearly every deal can be won. Two suits is where the real game starts. Half the cards now conflict, off-suit builds start costing you, and you have to start reading two or three moves ahead before you commit to one. Four suits is the version the name was built for. Most players will not win most deals, and that is fine; the aim is to get further into the stock each time, keep more columns healthy, and turn the occasional deal into a win. Our game remembers which difficulty you were on, and keeps your win count and your best-moves record in your browser, so there is always a number to chase.
Undo and hint are planning tools
Press U to undo and H for a hint. On four suits, undo is how you think: try a line, watch what it exposes, take it back, try the other one. That is not cheating, it is how solitaire researchers analyse deals, and the best-moves record still rewards the player who finds the short route. The hint is honest too. It will point at a legal move, not necessarily a good one, so if it keeps suggesting an off-suit drop you are probably out of good options and it is time to deal.
Where Spider comes from
The earliest description anyone has found is an unsigned article in the November 1937 issue of Ely Culbertson's Games Digest, and the researcher Michael Keller thinks it is very likely an American invention. Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith set the modern 54-card layout in their 1949 Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games. The name comes from the eight foundation piles, one for each leg, and it was famously a favourite of Franklin Roosevelt. Most people met it much later, when Microsoft shipped it in Plus! for Windows 98 and then with Windows ME and XP.
Frequently asked questions
Is Spider Solitaire always winnable?
No. One-suit deals can almost always be won with careful play, two-suit deals usually can, and four-suit deals often cannot. Our deals are random shuffles rather than pre-checked puzzles, so a lost four-suit game is not necessarily a mistake on your part.
Why won't the game let me deal new cards?
Because a column is empty. Spider only allows a deal when all ten columns hold at least one card, so move any card into the empty column first, ideally a King or the top of a same-suit run.
Can I move a run of mixed suits together?
No. Cards can be stacked on any suit one rank higher, but a group only moves as a unit when it is a descending run in a single suit. That is the whole reason to keep suits together.
If you are still choosing a variant, our comparison of Klondike, Spider and FreeCell sets them side by side, and the FreeCell guide covers the game that removes luck altogether. Every solitaire we host sits on the solitaire page.
Play Spider Solitaire free in your browser: one, two or four suits, drag or tap, full keyboard control, no download and no account. Start on one suit, empty a column, and see how far the stock lets you get.