How to play Spider
Spider uses two decks, 104 cards. Fifty-four cards are dealt into ten columns: six cards in each of the first four and five in the other six, with only the top card face up. The other 50 cards stay in the stock and are dealt one per column, five times in all.
- You can place a card on any card one rank higher, whatever the suit, such as a 7 of spades on an 8 of hearts.
- To move several cards together, they must be a run of one suit going down by one.
- Any card or run can go into an empty column.
- When 13 cards of one suit run from King down to Ace, they clear away automatically. Clear eight runs to win.
- Press the stock to deal one card onto every column. You cannot deal while a column is empty.
1, 2 or 4 suits
With one suit, all 104 cards are spades, so the runs you build always end up in one suit. Start here if you are new. Two suits mixes spades and hearts, and four suits uses all of them, which is far harder because mixed runs have to be untangled.
Tips
- Build in suit when you can: a card placed on a different suit cannot move with it later.
- Turn over hidden cards: work on short columns first to open up an empty column.
- Treat empty columns as precious: they are your best tool for sorting long runs, so fill them only when it helps.
- Tidy up before you deal: every deal covers each column with a new card, so finish the moves you have first.
A short history
Spider became widely known through Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith's 1949 book of solitaire games, although earlier mentions are reported and its exact origin is unclear. The name is often explained by the eight runs you must complete, like a spider's eight legs. Its inclusion with a PC operating system in the late 1990s brought it to millions of players.