How to Play Spider Solitaire
Most solitaire games use 1 deck. Spider uses 2, dealt into 10 columns, and that second pack is what turns it from a quick hand into the long game of the family. There are no foundations to build up to and no waste pile to feed, so all the sorting has to happen in the columns in front of you, run by run. The trickiest thing for a newcomer is not the moves, which are few, but the choice between the 1 suit, 2 suit and 4 suit games, which play so differently they almost count as 3.
The goal
You are building 8 sequences, and each one is a full run from King down to Ace in a single suit. The moment you finish a run, the game lifts those 13 cards off the table for you. Clear all 8 and you have won, because 8 runs of 13 is the whole 104 card pack. There is no separate foundation to build up to, the way there is in most solitaire. The sorting happens in the columns themselves, and that is what makes Spider feel like its own game rather than a bigger version of something else.
How the table is set up
Spider spreads 2 decks across 10 columns. The first 4 columns get 6 cards each and the other 6 get 5, so 54 cards are on the table at the start. Every column shows only its lowest card to begin with, and the rest sit face down beneath it. The remaining 50 cards stay in the stock at the side, ready to be dealt later. The 8 spaces across the top are not piles you build on. They are simply where a finished King to Ace run goes once you complete it.
How the cards move
There is really one move to learn, with a single rule layered on top of it about carrying more than one card at a time.
A card builds down by rank, and for a single card the suit does not matter at all. Any eight can sit on any nine, any nine on any ten, on up the ranks. So you are always scanning for a card one rank higher than the one you want to place, anywhere on the table.
The catch is the group move. You can pick up several cards and carry them together only when they already form a run in the same suit. A nine, eight and seven of spades sitting in order will travel as one block. A nine of spades with an eight of hearts beneath it will not move together, even though the ranks line up, because the suits break the run. That one rule is the strategic heart of the whole game, and it is the reason suited building matters so much once you leave the 1 suit version behind.
Clear a column down to a face down card and it turns over by itself, joining the cards you can play. Empty columns are generous in Spider: any card or any suited run can drop into one, with none of the King only restriction that Klondike places on its empty columns.
Completing a suit and clearing it
When a full same suit run comes together, King at the top down to Ace at the bottom, the game removes all 13 cards on its own and sends them to one of the slots above. You do not click anything. It happens the instant the run is complete and face up. This is the only way cards ever leave the table, so the entire game is a slow effort to assemble 8 of these runs one at a time.
Dealing from the stock
Sooner or later the table stops offering moves, and that is when you deal a new row from the stock. One card lands face up on every column at once, all 10 of them. The stock holds 50 cards, so a full game gives you 5 of these deals.
One rule trips people up here. You cannot deal a new row while any column is empty. The game makes you fill every gap first. It is easy to forget, and it is also a good reason not to rush a column empty right before you were planning to deal, since you may find you have blocked your own stock.
One suit, 2 suits or 4
Spider comes in 3 strengths, and the only thing that changes between them is how many suits are in the 2 deck pack.
One suit is all spades. Since every card shares a suit, every descending group is automatically a suited run, so cards slide around freely and your only real job is order. Played with a little care it is won most of the time, which makes it the right place to learn the shape of the game.
Two suits brings in hearts alongside the spades. Now the group move starts to bite. You can still drop a heart onto a spade to park it for a moment, but that stack will not move as a unit, so you are forever weighing whether a neat looking pile is actually doing you any good. A careful player lands somewhere around half of these.
Four suits is the full game with all 4 suits mixed in. Suited runs are hard to build and easy to break, and even strong players clear only a minority of deals. Come here once 2 suits feels steady, and not a moment before.
How to actually win
The rules are short. Winning is not, and a handful of habits separate the games you clear from the ones that quietly stall out.
Build in suit when you have the choice
An off suit stack looks like progress, but it is really a debt, because you will have to take it apart again before any of it can move. Treat mixed suit stacking as short term parking rather than building.
Guard your empty columns
Nothing on a Spider table is worth more than a column you have cleared. It gives you room to lift a stack aside, dig down to a buried card or rebuild a run into the right order. Keep at least one open when you can, instead of filling it the moment a card is free.
Turn over the face down cards
The cards you cannot see yet are what quietly lose a game, so prying them loose is real progress. A move that turns a hidden card face up is almost always worth more than one that only shuffles the cards already showing.
Do not deal too early
Every stock deal drops a fresh card on all 10 columns and buries whatever was on top. Squeeze every move out of the current board first. A deal is a reset you get 5 times in a game, not a button to press when you feel stuck.
On 2 and 4 suits, mind the suit
Before you place a card, notice whether it is landing on its own suit or a foreign one. Keeping suits together is the slow road, and it is also the only one that ends in a finished run. Spider rewards patience more than almost any other solitaire, so when in doubt, make the quiet in suit move rather than the flashy one.
Common questions
How many decks does Spider Solitaire use?
Two. Spider is played with 104 cards, dealt 54 onto the 10 columns at the start and 50 held in the stock. That is why a game runs longer than a single deck solitaire.
Is Spider Solitaire hard?
It depends entirely on the suit count. One suit is gentle and won most of the time. Two suits asks for real planning. Four suits is genuinely difficult, even for strong players. If Spider feels impossible, check which version you are on before you blame the cards.
Can you always win Spider Solitaire?
No. With an ordinary shuffle some deals cannot be solved at all, and the harder the suit count the more of them there are. The Spider deals here are certified, so the ones you play do have a solution, which is worth knowing if you want the wider answer in is solitaire winnable.
Should I start with 1, 2 or 4 suits?
One suit. It teaches the moves and the rhythm without the suit juggling, and the habits you build there carry straight into the harder games. Move up only when the easier version feels routine.