Spider Solitaire raises the stakes with two full decks and ten columns: build sequences downward and remove complete King-to-Ace suit runs to clear the board. There is no foundation to aim for — the tableau itself is the battlefield, and every run you finish flies away. It is a tougher dragon to tame than Dragon (Klondike), and the difficulty scales cleanly with how many suits are in play.
How to play Spider Solitaire
Spider deals 54 cards face-down across ten columns — the first four hold six cards, the rest hold five — plus one face-up card on top of each. The remaining 50 cards sit in the stock. You build downward regardless of colour: any Jack goes on any Queen, any six on any seven. But you can only pick up and move a run of cards if they are all the same suit and in order.
When you assemble a full descending run from King down to Ace in a single suit, it is lifted off the board automatically. Clear all eight runs to win. When you have no move you like, tap the stock to deal one new card onto every column at once — which means each column must have at least one card before you can deal. Empty columns are gold: any card or valid run can move into them. Use Undo and Hint freely while you learn the flow.
Spider Solitaire strategy & tips
Spider is won or lost on how well you keep sequences in one suit. Whenever you have a choice, build same-suit even if an off-suit move looks tidier — a black nine on a black ten keeps a run portable, while a red nine strands it. Work to empty a column early; a free column is your most powerful tool for untangling mixed piles and re-sorting suits.
Before you deal from the stock, make every move you can, because a fresh deal drops a card on every column and can bury your careful work. Try not to leave a column empty right before dealing unless you must — the rules force all columns to be occupied first. Expose face-down cards as a priority; they are the hidden reserve that decides the game. If you are new, start with the one-suit game to learn the rhythm, then step up to two and four suits. The extra suits do not change the rules, only how ruthlessly you must guard your sequences.
Choosing your suit count
Spider's genius is a single difficulty dial: the number of suits. One-suit Spider uses two decks of a single suit and is a gentle, almost meditative game — nearly every deal is winnable with care. Two-suit introduces real decisions about when to break a run, and four-suit is the classic championship version, where a careless deal can lock the board for good.
The name reflects the eight foundation-like runs you must build — eight legs, like a spider. Because there is no separate foundation and no colour rule, Spider rewards planning several moves ahead more than Dragon Solitaire does, while sharing its patience and dig-first instincts. If the two-deck sprawl feels heavy, the all-face-up Yukon offers a different kind of open-board challenge on a single deck.