Play Spider Solitaire online

Spider solitaire with two decks, ten columns and your choice of one, two or four suits. Build runs from king to ace in one suit and they clear themselves. Undo is unlimited and hints explain each move. There is no app, no sign-up and no interstitial before play; it works offline after the first visit and plays from the keyboard.

How to play Spider Solitaire

1. Two decks, 104 cards, are dealt into ten columns: four of six cards and six of five. Only the top card of each is face up.
2. The other 50 cards wait in the stock, which deals ten at a time, five times.
3. Place any card on a card one rank higher, whatever the suit: a 6 on any 7.
4. Only a run in one suit, descending by one, moves as a unit. Face-down cards turn over when uncovered.
5. Any card or same-suit run can go into an empty column.
6. Tap the stock to deal one card onto every column. You can only deal when no column is empty.
7. A complete run of one suit from king down to ace leaves the table by itself. Clear all eight to win.
8. If the stock is empty and nothing can move, the game is over; undo still works.

Spider Solitaire strategy

Spider is a long game, and most of it is about keeping cards movable. A run you build out of mixed suits is fine as a parking spot but cannot travel as a unit, so every decision is a trade between making room now and keeping runs clean for later.

Build in suit whenever you can

When a card can go on two different cards of the right rank, choose the one of the same suit. Same-suit runs move together and eventually clear; mixed runs have to be taken apart card by card. The hint follows the same order: complete a suit first, then uncover a card, then build in suit, and only then build across suits.

Turn over face-down cards early

There are 44 face-down cards at the start. Moves that uncover one give you information and new options, so they usually beat moves that only rearrange face-up cards. Work on the columns with the most hidden cards when you can.

Value empty columns highly

An empty column is the most flexible spot in the game: it takes any card or same-suit run, and it lets you take apart a mixed column and rebuild it in suit. Do not fill one with a single low card without a reason. When you need to deal, though, every column must hold at least one card, so plan what goes into the empty ones first.

Deal on your terms

Each deal drops a card on every column and can bury a run you were building. Before you tap the stock, make the moves you can, fill empty columns with cards that do the least harm, and put your best runs where a random card on top hurts least. With five deals in the stock, count how many you have left.

Use undo freely

The hint looks one move ahead, not to the end, so it can walk into a dead end. Unlimited undo lets you back out of a bad deal or try a different order.

One, two or four suits: which Spider Solitaire to play

The three versions use the same 104 cards and the same rules; only the suits change. With one suit every card is a spade, so every build is in suit and every run can move. With two suits there are 52 spades and 52 hearts, and you have to choose your builds. With four suits there are two cards of each rank in each suit and clean runs are rare, which makes it one of the hardest common solitaire games.

Deals are shuffled at random and not checked by a solver, so not every deal can be won, especially with four suits.

Scoring

• You start with 500 points.
• Every move or deal costs 1 point.
• Each completed suit adds 100 points.
• The score can go below zero. Your best score is kept per variant.

About Spider

Spider is a traditional patience game played with two decks. Unlike most patience games, it has no foundations to build up by hand: complete suits leave the table on their own. Easier versions with one or two suits became popular once the game moved to computers, where the 104 cards can be printed in any suits you like, and they are now the way most people learn it.

Stats, score and hints

Each version keeps its own stats in your browser: games played, won, win rate, best and average time, and best score. The timer starts on your first move and pauses when the page is hidden. Undo and redo are unlimited.

The first two hints in each game are free; when ads are switched on later, further hints offer a short ad or a 30-second wait. Hints name the kind of move: Complete a suit, Uncover a card, Build in suit, Build down or Deal. Every game has a puzzle code such as A7K3Q, and ?p=A7K3Q in the address replays the same deal. Spider has no daily deal and no printables.

Plays anywhere, no app, no account

All ten columns fit a 360-pixel phone without sideways scrolling, and the whole game can be played with the arrow keys, Enter and D to deal. Tidy Puzzles runs entirely in your browser: there is no app to install, no account to create and no interstitial before you can play. After the first visit the game also works offline, because each puzzle is generated on your device from a seed. Every board can be played with the keyboard alone, on a phone or a desktop, and your stats and unfinished puzzles stay in this browser rather than on a server.