How to play Spider Solitaire: rules, suits, and your first cleared run

Spider Solitaire is its own game, not a variant of the Klondike Solitaire that shipped with Windows. If you have played Klondike, it helps to know what carries over and what does not, because a few habits from Klondike will steer you wrong here.

• Spider uses two full decks, 104 cards, instead of one. That is why the board is so wide.
• There is no waste pile and there are no foundation slots to build up from the ace. You do all of your work right in the columns.
• You build down in the columns, the same direction as Klondike, but color does not matter when you place a single card. Suit matters only in one specific situation, which we will get to.
• You win by completing whole runs from King down to Ace in one suit, which then lift off the board, rather than by feeding four foundation piles.

The single most important thing to know before you start: Spider has a difficulty dial, and you should turn it all the way down at first. We will come back to that, but keep it in mind as you read.

Spider lays its two decks out into ten columns across the table, plus a stock you draw from later. Getting the deal right makes the rest of the game obvious.

• There are ten tableau columns, the main playing area where everything happens.
• The deal puts 54 cards down to start: the first four columns get six cards each, and the last six columns get five each. In every column only the bottom card, the one nearest you, is face up. Everything above it is face down for now.
• The remaining 50 cards become the stock, dealt out later in five rounds of ten, one card to every column each time.

On the easiest setting all 104 cards are the same suit, so the two decks are effectively a hundred-and-four-card stack of, say, spades. The harder settings mix in a second suit or all four suits, which is the only thing that changes between difficulties.

You win Spider by clearing all the cards off the table into completed runs. A completed run is a full sequence in a single suit, running from King at the top down to Ace at the bottom: King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, and so on through the 2 and the Ace, all of the same suit.

Because two decks hold eight cards of each rank per suit, there are eight complete runs to build in total. Each time you finish one, it leaves the board automatically. Clear all eight and you have won. That is the whole objective: everything else exists to assemble those eight ordered, same-suit runs.

Spider has a single placement rule, with a twist about suits that trips up almost every new player. Read this part twice.

You build down by rank, and any suit can land on a card one rank higher. To move a single card onto another column, the card it lands on just has to be exactly one rank higher. A 9 of any suit can go on any 10. A Jack can go on any Queen. When you are placing one card, suit is ignored completely, so a heart can sit on a spade and nobody minds.

But you can only pick up and move a run as a unit if it is all one suit, in order. Here is the twist. A block of cards already sitting in descending order can be moved together in a single action only when the whole block is the same suit. A 10, 9, 8 that are all spades can be lifted and moved as one piece. A 10 of spades, 9 of hearts, 8 of clubs is a legal-looking stack, but because the suits are mixed you can only move the bottom card on its own, then the next, one at a time.

That is the entire reason suits matter in Spider. They do not affect where a single card can go. They decide whether a chunk of cards travels together or has to be unstacked one card at a time. On the one-suit game this never bites you, because every ordered run is automatically the same suit, which is exactly why one suit is the place to start.

Sooner or later you run out of useful moves in the columns. That is what the stock is for. Tap the stock and it deals one new card face up onto the bottom of every column at once, ten cards in one go. You get five of these deals, using up all fifty stock cards.

There is one strict condition: you cannot deal from the stock while any column is empty. Every column must have at least one card before the next deal is allowed. This rule shapes how you play, because an empty column is a powerful free space to maneuver cards through, but you have to fill it back up before you can draw again.

Two more things happen as you play. Whenever you move the cards off the bottom of a column and expose a face-down card, that card flips face up and becomes playable. Uncovering those hidden cards is how the game opens up. And a dealt-from-stock card can drop awkwardly onto a column, breaking up a tidy run, so it is worth tidying the board before you spend a deal.

When you finally line up a full King-down-to-Ace sequence in a single suit within one column, the game lifts that entire run off the board on its own. You do not have to send it anywhere; there are no foundations to drop it onto. It simply clears, leaving whatever was underneath it behind.

This is the satisfying part and also a strategic one. Removing a run shortens a column, often exposes a face-down card under it, and can even empty a column outright, which gives you that valuable free space. Each of the eight runs you complete makes the remaining board a little easier to manage. Clear the eighth and the table is empty, which is the win.

Start on the one-suit game. With every card the same suit, you never have to worry about whether a run can move, so you can focus on the actual puzzle. Here is a reliable sequence to work through.

1. Build down wherever you can. Place higher cards onto cards one rank above them to grow ordered runs. On one suit every run you build is already movable, so stack freely.
2. Flip face-down cards as a priority. Among your options, prefer the move that uncovers a hidden card. A move that turns over a new card gives you information and options you did not have; a move that only shuffles two face-up cards usually does not.
3. Work the longest, most ordered columns first. Keep extending the runs that are closest to a full King-to-Ace sequence, and consolidate scattered cards toward them so a complete run can lift off.
4. Try to open a column, but fill it before dealing. An empty column lets you park a King or relocate a run, which untangles the board. Just remember you cannot deal from the stock until every column has a card again, so refill it before you draw.
5. Deal from the stock only when you are stuck. Each deal drops a card on every column and can break up tidy runs, so tidy first, then draw, and keep going until the eighth run clears.

The one habit that turns a stuck game into a finished one: uncover face-down cards before you spend a stock deal. Every face-down card you flip is a new piece of the puzzle, and once the stock is gone there is no fresh supply of cards. Get the board as open as you can on the cards you already see, then deal.