Spider Solitaire is the patience game played with two decks across ten columns: build runs of one suit from king down to ace, and each full run leaves the table. Play with one suit, two or four, free in your browser, with no download and no sign-up. Every deal here can be won, and you can race a friend on the same one.
Spider is a patience game from the middle of the twentieth century, named for the eight legs of a spider, one for each run you have to take off. Fifty-four cards are dealt into ten columns, only the top card of each face up; the other fifty wait in the stock, to be dealt ten at a time, a card onto every column.
Any card goes on a card one rank higher, whatever its suit, and any card fills an empty column, not only a king as in Klondike. But cards move together only when they are of one suit and in order, so every mixed stack you build is one you will have to take apart again. With one suit that never happens; with two it happens often; with four it is the whole game.
Before a deal reaches you, a solver in the game plays it out knowing every card, and only deals it can win are dealt, in all three levels. You still have to find the way without seeing under the face-down cards. Take moves back as often as you like, and keep your best time and fewest moves for each number of suits in this browser.
The two decks and their suits, which card goes on which, what moves together, empty columns, dealing from the stock, and taking a run off.
Spider Solitaire Rules: How to Play →Which cards to free first, why runs of one suit matter, how to use an empty column, and what to tidy before you deal.
How to Win at Spider Solitaire →Open a table and send a friend the link. You play the same deal side by side, each at your own table: first to take all eight runs off wins, or whoever has taken off more after 5, 10 or 15 minutes.
Neither of you can see the other’s cards, since they are your cards too: you see how many runs they have off, how many cards they have turned over, their moves and their deals, and both tables are laid open at the end.
Not every deal in general, and with four suits many are very hard. Here every deal can be won, because a solver plays it out knowing every card before it is dealt, for one, two and four suits alike. You can still lose one by going the wrong way, since you cannot see under the face-down cards.
Start with one suit: every card fits every other a rank higher, and most games can be finished. Two suits is the step up, where you start to care what lies on what. Four suits is the real test, and even good players lose many games of it.
Because a column is empty. As in every version of Spider, the stock is dealt only when every column has at least one card: put a card, or a run, in each empty column first.
Yes. Open a table, send your friend the link, and race on the same deal: first to take every run off, or the most runs against the clock. You see how far your friend has got, but not their cards.
Yes, completely. It runs in your browser on a computer or a phone, with no download, no account and no sign-up.
Prefer one deck? Play Solitaire, or try Minesweeper and Nonograms.