How to Play Spider Solitaire

Published 2026-10-20

The full rules of Spider Solitaire, why 4 suits is so much harder than 1, a real 4-suit deal played move by move, and the habits that win more games.

Spider Solitaire in two sentences

Spider Solitaire deals two decks, 104 cards, into ten columns. You win by building eight complete runs from King down to Ace, each in a single suit; every finished run leaves the table, and when all eight are gone the game is won.

You may stack any card on the next rank up, whatever its suit, but only a run of one suit ever clears. That gap between what you can move and what you can score is the whole game, and it is why the 4-suit version is so much harder than 1-suit, where every card is a spade.

Setup: 104 cards, 10 columns and a 50-card stock

Ten tableau columns get 54 cards between them. Columns 1 to 4 hold six cards each, columns 5 to 10 hold five.
Only the top card of each column is face up. Everything underneath starts face down, and turning those cards over is most of what you are doing.
The other 50 cards form the stock. That is exactly five more deals of ten cards.
There are no foundations to build up, no free cells and no waste pile. A completed run goes off to one side, and the game shows how many of the eight you have cleared.

Spider Solitaire rules

Build down by rank in any suit: an 8 can go on any 9, a Queen on any King. Suit plays no part in whether a move is legal.
Move runs, not just cards: a face-up run in descending order moves as one unit, even if it mixes suits. Standard rules, including the Spider that came with Windows, only let a run move as a unit when it is all one suit. Solitarium is more permissive: any descending face-up run moves, mixed suits included.
Empty columns take any card or run. Not just a King, which is the rule people bring over from Klondike.
When you move cards off a face-down card, it turns face up on its own.
Clearing: when the top of a column holds King, Queen, Jack and so on down to Ace, all in one suit and all face up, those 13 cards clear automatically.
Dealing: when you are out of useful moves, deal from the stock. One card goes face up onto each of the ten columns. You cannot deal while any column is empty, so fill gaps first.
You win when all eight runs have cleared.

How to play 4-suit Spider: the rule that makes it hard

In 1-suit Spider every card is a spade, so every run you build is already a clearable run. In 4-suit Spider a 9♥ on a 10♣ is a perfectly legal move, and that pair will never clear as long as it stays together. Anything you build on top of the 9♥ cannot clear while it sits on the 10♣.

So the 4-suit game is not about finding legal moves; there are usually plenty. It is about choosing the ones that keep suits together, and accepting a mixed placement only when it buys you something real, such as turning over a face-down card or emptying a column.

Spider Solitaire 1 suit vs 2 suits vs 4 suits

All three common versions use the same 104 cards, the same ten columns and the same eight runs to clear. Only the number of suits changes.

1 suit: eight copies of the spades. Every run clears, so you can focus on uncovering cards, keeping columns open and timing deals. The right place to learn.
2 suits: four copies each of spades and hearts. The first taste of suit planning, offered by many sites. We do not offer it yet.
4 suits: two full standard decks. Every placement is a suit decision, deals bury what you are building, and many deals end in a loss even with careful play. This is the version experienced players mean when they say Spider.

A worked opening: 4-suit deal 13, move by move

Here is a real 4-suit deal from our game. The link below opens the same board, so you can follow along: every Solitarium deal comes from a seed, and this one is seed 13. We generated this deal and checked every move in our own game engine.

At the start, the face-up card on each column is (hidden cards in brackets):

Column 1: 5♣ (5 hidden)
Column 2: 4♣ (5 hidden)
Column 3: A♣ (5 hidden)
Column 4: 10♥ (5 hidden)
Column 5: K♠ (4 hidden)
Column 6: 9♥ (4 hidden)
Column 7: 10♣ (4 hidden)
Column 8: 8♥ (4 hidden)
Column 9: Q♣ (4 hidden)
Column 10: 3♦ (4 hidden)

Open deal 13 and play it yourself

The first six moves, and why

Move 1: 4♣ from column 2 onto the 5♣ in column 1. Same suit, and it turns over the 6♥ in column 2.
Move 2: 9♥ from column 6 onto the 10♥ in column 4, not onto the 10♣ in column 7. Both are legal and both turn over a card, but only one keeps the hearts clearable. Column 6 reveals the J♥.
Move 3: 8♥ from column 8 onto the 9♥. Column 4 now runs 10♥ 9♥ 8♥, all hearts, and column 8 turns over the 2♦.
Move 4: the whole 10♥ 9♥ 8♥ run from column 4 onto the J♥ in column 6. The run grows to four hearts and column 4 turns over the 6♣. This is move 2 paying off: had the 9♥ gone onto the 10♣, there would be no hearts run to move.
Move 5: 2♦ from column 8 onto the 3♦ in column 10. Same suit again, and column 8 turns over the A♠.
Move 6: the 5♣ 4♣ pair from column 1 onto the 6♣ in column 4. Three clubs together, and column 1 turns over the 8♣.

Where that leaves you

Six moves, six face-down cards turned over, three same-suit runs started (J♥ down to 8♥, 6♣ down to 4♣, 3♦ 2♦), and the stock untouched. Nothing on the board is mixed yet.

The next choices show the trade-off you will face all game. Moving the J♥ run onto the Q♣ turns over a card in column 6 and leaves the hearts together, which costs little. Moving 3♦ 2♦ onto the 4♣ also turns over a card, but it lays diamonds on top of your clubs run, which you will have to untangle later before the clubs can clear. Weigh every placement that way: what does it reveal, and what does it bury?

4-Suit Spider Solitaire strategy

Same suit first. When a card has two legal homes, pick the one in its own suit, even if the other looks tidier.
Turn over cards early. A face-down card is a card you cannot plan around. Prefer moves that reveal one over moves that only rearrange what you can already see.
Treat empty columns as workspace. Use them to take a mixed run apart and rebuild it suit by suit, not as a place to park a card you could not place.
Do not deal until you are stuck. Every deal drops a card on all ten columns, usually on top of something you were building. And since you cannot deal with an empty column, dealing also costs you whatever empty columns you had.
Keep track of buried suits. If most of one suit is under other cards, uncovering it matters more than extending a run that is already long.
Expect to lose some. You cannot see the face-down cards, so even strong players lose many 4-suit deals; the classic estimate puts a skilled player at about one win in three. If a position looks hopeless after a few deals, a new deal is a fair choice.

1-Suit Spider Solitaire strategy

Build long runs in as few columns as possible. Every run is clearable, so length is pure progress.
Empty a column whenever you can. In 1-suit an empty column is almost always worth more than anything you could put in it.
Still hold back the stock. A deal can bury a nearly finished run just as easily here as in 4-suit.
Use 1-suit to learn the rhythm of reveal, empty, deal. Once you win it regularly, 4-suit is the same game with suits added.

Why is it called Spider Solitaire?

Spider Solitaire is usually said to take its name from the eight runs you must clear, compared with the eight legs of a spider. It belongs to the patience, or solitaire, family of one-player card games, and it became widely known after Microsoft released it in the Plus! 98 add-on pack in 1998, then included it with Windows Me and Windows XP alongside Klondike and FreeCell.

Can you move a stack of mixed suits in Spider Solitaire?

On Solitarium, yes: any face-up run in descending order moves as one unit, even if it mixes suits. Standard rule books, and the Spider that came with Windows, only let same-suit runs move together, so other versions will refuse the move. Either way, a mixed run never clears; only a King-to-Ace run in a single suit leaves the table.

When can you deal from the stock in Spider Solitaire?

You can deal from the stock at any time, as long as none of the ten columns is empty. A deal puts one face-up card on every column, and the 50-card stock gives you five deals in total. If a column is empty, move a card or run into it first.

Is every game of 4-suit Spider Solitaire winnable?

Almost all of them, in principle. Computer solvers that can see every card have won almost every one of the tens of thousands of 4-suit deals tried; only a handful look unwinnable. Real play is much harder, because the face-down cards are hidden: the classic estimate, from Morehead and Mott-Smith, puts a skilled player at about one win in three. Unlimited undo, which on Solitarium includes deals from the stock, narrows that gap. 1-suit Spider is far kinder, because every run you build can clear.

Can you undo in Spider Solitaire?

On Solitarium, undo is unlimited and includes deals from the stock, so you can take back a deal that buried your best run and try another line. Undo is a big help in 4-suit Spider, where one move can decide whether a suit ever clears.

Where these rules come from

Spider has no governing body. We follow the standard rules in the references below, with one deliberate difference: here any face-up descending run moves as a unit, where standard rules only move runs of one suit. The one-in-three estimate is Morehead and Mott-Smith’s, as reported by Solitaire Laboratory; the solver results are from Blake and Gent.

Now go and play

Start with deal 13 from this guide, then try your own. If 4 suits is too much today, 1 suit is the same game with every card a spade. And if you like planning several moves ahead, the FreeCell guide is next.

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