Spider Solitaire rules

Spider is a solitaire card game for one player, played with two decks and ten columns. The aim is to build runs of one suit from the king down to the ace in the columns. A full run leaves the table by itself, and when all eight runs have gone, you have won.

It looks like Klondike, but it plays very differently: any card goes on any card one rank higher, any card can fill an empty column, and the whole game turns on keeping the suits apart. Below are the rules, the controls, and how to race friends on the same deal.

The cards: one, two or four suits

Spider uses 104 cards, two full decks' worth, but how many suits they come in is up to you:

Since there are two decks, the same card turns up more than once: in a game of one suit there are eight kings of spades. They are all the same card.

The layout

The cards are shuffled and dealt into ten columns: six cards in each of the first four and five in each of the other six, 54 in all. Only the top card of each column lies face up; the rest lie face down under it.

The 50 cards left over go face down into the stock, which is dealt later, ten cards at a time: five deals in all. Across the top are eight empty places for the runs you take off.

Building the columns

A card goes on a column one rank lower than the card on top of it, of any suit. A seven goes on an eight, a jack on a queen, whatever the suits. The rank order is K, Q, J, 10, 9 … 2, A, so nothing goes on an ace, and a king goes on nothing but an empty column.

What moves together: a run of one suit

Here is the catch. You may pick up several cards at once only if they are all of one suit and in order, each one rank lower than the one above it. That is a run. You can move a whole run, or any part of it from a card down to the end, as long as its top card fits where it goes.

A stack in order but of mixed suits cannot be moved in one go: only the cards of one suit on top of it can.

This is why the suit matters although any card goes on any other: every time you put a card on one of another suit, you build a stack you will have to take apart again.

Cards turn over by themselves

When the last face-up card leaves a column, the card under it turns face up at once. Most of the cards start face down, so turning them over is how the game moves on.

Empty columns take any card

When a column is empty, any card may go in it, or any run: not only a king, as in Klondike. An empty column is the most useful thing on the table, somewhere to put a card or a run for a while as you rearrange the others.

Dealing from the stock

When you have done what you can, deal from the stock: one card goes face up onto every column at once, ten cards in all. There are five deals, and the piles in the corner show how many are left.

You cannot deal while a column is empty. Every column must hold at least one card first, so fill each empty column with a card or a run before you deal. This is the classic rule, kept in every version of Spider.

A deal covers every column with a card that may well not fit there, so it is worth tidying up before each one: see the strategy guide.

Taking a run off

When a column ends in a full run of one suit, from the king down to the ace, the run leaves the table by itself and goes up to one of the eight places at the top. You do not have to do anything. The card it lay on, if it was face down, turns over.

A run from king to ace of mixed suits does not go: it has to be one suit. Runs cannot come back down to the table once they are off.

Winning

You win when all eight runs are off the table. The game shows your time and your number of moves, and keeps your best time and fewest moves for each number of suits in your browser.

There is no way to tell for certain that you are stuck: cards can always be moved back and forth. If you are out of ideas, start a new deal or the same one over.

Every deal here can be won

In Spider, especially with four suits, many deals are very hard, and some cannot be won at all. Here, before a deal is ever shown to you, a solver plays it out knowing where every card is, and only a deal it can finish is dealt. That goes for one, two and four suits alike.

That does not mean you cannot lose. The solver sees under the face-down cards and you do not, so a wrong turn can still leave you stuck. What it promises is that a way through was always there.

Controls

• Tap and tap: tap a card to pick it up, and the cards of one suit on it come along; then tap the column it goes to. Tap it again to put it back down. This is the easiest way on a phone.
• Hints are off to begin with, so you work out the moves yourself. When you play alone you can turn them on in the panel, and the columns a card you pick up can go to are ringed in red. A race has no hints.
• Drag: press on a card and drag it to its column with the mouse or a finger.
• Tap the stock to deal.
• Undo takes back your last move, as many times as you like, deals included. A card a move turned over stays face up when the move is taken back: undo is for mistakes, not for peeking.

A game in progress is kept in your browser, so a reload does not lose it. New deal starts another game; Replay this deal starts the same one over.

Racing friends

Open a table with Race a friend and send the link to up to three friends. Two, three or four of you play the same deal, at the same time, each at your own table. There are no turns.

• You see only your own cards. The others' cards are your cards too, so seeing theirs would show you what lies under yours. Of each of them you see how many runs they have taken off, how many cards they have turned over, and how many moves and deals they have made. Every table is laid open when the race ends.
• Ready and Start. Before the start every friend who has sat down presses Ready, and whoever opened the table presses Start (at least one friend has to be seated). The race is dealt for everyone seated at that moment; anyone who arrives later watches. The cards turn over for all of you at the same moment.

Whoever opened the table chooses the number of suits, and the race:

When someone wins, the race ends there for everyone, and everyone else loses.

In a race against the clock the time starts with the race, runs without stopping, and ends it by itself; it does not wait for someone who has lost their connection.

A racer who is stuck can offer a draw: it is a draw only when everyone still racing agrees, and declining it, or playing on before agreeing, turns it down. A racer can also resign, which puts them out and loses them the race; the others race on, and whoever is left alone in the race wins. Someone who loses their connection has 60 seconds to come back; after that the others can race on without them, as if they had resigned. There is no undo in a race.

After a race, Play again deals a new game with the same settings for the same players straight away, everyone moving one seat round, and keeps the score. Whoever opened the table can press Change settings instead to choose again first, and someone new can sit down then; the score is kept then too.

Ready? Play Spider Solitaire, or read how to win at Spider first. For one deck and alternating colours, try Klondike solitaire.