How to Win Spider Solitaire

In Spider, the moves that hurt you rarely look bad at the time. A new stock row can bury a run you were building, and one card dropped on the wrong suit can take several moves to dig out later. This guide walks through real positions: which card to turn over first, how to use an empty column and when to deal, with separate advice for 1, 2 and 4 suits. For the movement rules, begin with how to play Spider Solitaire.

Size up the face-down cards before you move

Look over all 10 columns before you make the first legal pair you see. At the start, 4 columns hold 5 face-down cards and the other six hold 4, but their useful face-up cards are rarely spread evenly. Find the columns where one or two moves will turn a card over. Those are your early targets. A new card there tells you something and may be the rank that links 2 other columns.

Also note the awkward columns. A low exposed card with no card to go on may take several moves to shift. A high card can be difficult for the opposite reason: there may be nowhere useful to put it. You do not need a complete solution at the opening, but you should know which column you want to uncover first and where its exposed card could go.

Give face-down cards priority, with one exception

In the first half of a game, uncovering a face-down card is normally the best measure of progress. If two moves are both legal, prefer the one that shortens a covered column or prepares its last exposed card to move.

The exception is a reveal that consumes your only workable space. Suppose clearing a column requires you to break a long suited run and fill the only empty column you have. You may gain one unknown card while losing the room needed to sort everything around it. In that position, build a temporary landing place first.

Use an empty column as working space

An empty column is the most flexible place on a Spider board. It accepts any card or any movable same-suit run, so it can hold one section while you repair another. That makes it more useful than a neat mixed stack and often more useful than a move to a nearly finished run.

Try not to fill the gap simply because a card fits. Decide what the space is for. You might use it to separate 2 suits, release the card under a long run or reverse the order of 2 partial sequences. Once that job is done, aim to empty it again. Strong Spider play often borrows the same column several times over, instead of clearing several columns and filling all of them at once.

There is a practical limit. A new stock row cannot be dealt while a column is empty. If you have run out of useful moves and need the stock, put the card or run that will be easiest to move again in the gap. A lone low card is a poor choice, because it will have nowhere to go after the deal.

Build same-suit runs from stable anchors

Spider lets you place any suit on the next higher rank, but only a same-suit sequence travels as a group. A mixed run can solve an immediate placement problem while making the next 3 moves harder. Before adding an off-suit card, ask how you expect to remove it again.

Long suited runs are safest when they rest on a high card that can still move on. A suited 9 through 5 is useful, but it becomes far more useful when the matching 10 or Jack is accessible. Short fragments near the Ace end are less urgent because they cannot absorb many cards yet. Build around the sections that can grow in both directions, and keep an eye on duplicate ranks. With 2 decks, the first 8 you see may not be the 8 that belongs in the run you are making.

Deal from the stock only after a board check

A stock deal puts a new card on each of the 10 columns and buries every card you can currently play. Before dealing, make 3 checks.

1. Have you made every reveal that does not damage a useful suited run?
2. Can 2 mixed fragments be joined or separated with the current exposed cards?
3. Are your longest suited runs resting where a new card will not trap them?

You do not have to play every legal move. Some moves only swap one blockage for another. Stop when the remaining choices make the board worse, then deal.

Winning at Spider 1 Suit

In Spider 1 Suit, every descending stack is movable. Your main risks are burying low cards, wasting empty columns and dealing before you have exposed enough of the tableau. Work on the columns with the fewest covered cards first, and combine short runs whenever the move leaves another useful card exposed.

With one suit, a descending run of any length can move. It still needs somewhere to go: an empty column or a card one rank above its top card. Before joining two runs, check that such a place exists. A long run parked on a column you need to uncover can sit there for a long time if nothing will take it.

Winning at Spider 2 Suits

Spider 2 Suits is where suit management becomes the game. Treat an off-suit placement as a loan. It should expose a card, clear a column or connect a better run. If it does none of those things, it is probably just a delay.

Try to keep a landing spot open for each suit when the board allows it. You don't need a strict hearts side and spades side, but a new fragment needs somewhere to go without breaking up a long sequence. When duplicate ranks give you a choice, use the copy that keeps those spots open.

Winning at Spider 4 Suits

In Spider 4 Suits, count suit changes within each descending stack. A 6-card stack containing 4 suits needs at least 4 separate transfers to move its parts elsewhere, and may need more if a suit appears in separate sections. Before adding another off-suit card, check where its section could move when you need the cards beneath it.

Work toward one suit you can actually finish instead of improving every column a little. The first completed run removes 13 cards and creates room, which is often the point where a tight deal becomes manageable. Preserve a clean fragment even if that means making a less attractive move elsewhere. In 4 suits, dismantling good work is expensive because the matching ranks may not return for several stock rows.

What to do when the table starts closing

When your options shrink, think back to where the game started to close up. Undoing only the last move usually leads you into the same dead end. The move worth changing is often an earlier off-suit placement that used up a card you needed, or a stock deal that covered a column just before you could clear it.

If you prefer to play without undo, stop and look at every exposed card. Is the card you need sitting under a single card you could move? Could a column be emptied if you moved its pieces in a different order? Don't keep moving the same card back and forth between two columns. Every move should turn a card over, join a suit, make space or set one of those up.

Some Random deals in Spider cannot be completed. Every Winnable deal on the site has a known solution, so a stuck game usually means an earlier choice went wrong. How we check that a deal can be won.

Play the endgame without rushing it

Once 5 or 6 runs have cleared, the board looks safe, but the last duplicated ranks can still cross each other. Keep one empty column until the remaining suits are separated. If the stock is gone, map each exposed fragment to the run it must join before moving anything.

Finish first the run that frees the most useful column, even when another run is closer to complete. When a finished King-to-Ace sequence leaves the table, use the new space to separate the remaining duplicate ranks before closing another run.

Practice with Spider 2 Suits

By Sam R., Solitaire.cx editor. Screenshots are from real games on this site. How these guides are written.