Short, exact answers to the questions people really ask about Spider Solitaire. Each answer has its own link, so you can send a friend straight to it.
Shuffle two decks together and deal 54 cards into ten columns: six cards in each of the first four columns and five in each of the other six. Only the last card of each column is face up. The other 50 cards are the stock, the face-down pile you deal from later.
The ten face-up cards after the deal: one at the end of each column.
Two standard 52-card decks, shuffled together without jokers: 104 cards in all.
54 cards go into the ten columns at the start, and the remaining 50 stay in the stock. The stock is dealt ten cards at a time, so it lasts for five deals.
Ten. The cards are laid out in ten columns (also called piles or stacks), each one overlapping downwards so you can see every face-up card.
Yes. Bicycle's rules deal only 50 cards: ten piles of five, four face down and one face up in each. That leaves 54 in the stock, so the last deal is just four cards, onto the first four piles. Both ways are fine; agree which one before you start.
Yes. Spider began as a card game long before computers: all you need is two ordinary decks and a table big enough for ten columns.
Not the standard game, which needs two decks. The one-deck version is called Spiderette: it uses a single deck laid out in seven columns of 1 to 7 cards, like ordinary Solitaire.
Move cards so each one sits on a card one rank higher, in any suit. When you build a full run from king down to ace in one suit, it leaves the table. When you are stuck, deal ten more cards from the stock. Clear all eight runs to win.
You win by completing all eight runs, each one king down to ace in a single suit. Two decks hold eight suits' worth of cards (four suits twice), so eight runs empty the table.
Yes. A card can go on any card one rank higher, whatever its suit or colour: a jack can go on any of the queens. Building in the same suit is still better, because only same-suit cards can later move as a group.
A 7 of hearts may go on an 8 of spades.
Only if they are a suited run: face-up cards going down one rank at a time, all in the same suit. A mixed-suit stack has to be taken apart one card at a time.
A suited run: these three move together.
Yes. You can split a suited run anywhere and move just the lower part of it, leaving the rest behind.
When you move the last face-up card off a column, turn the next card face up. It is now in play.
Only into an empty column, because no card is higher than a king. A king with cards below it can still be moved together with them if they form a suited run.
A king can only move into an empty column.
Any card, or any suited run that could be moved. It does not have to be a king.
Whenever you choose, as long as no column is empty. You deal ten cards face up, one onto every column. If a column is empty, fill it with a card first.
As soon as a column holds all 13 cards of one suit in order, king down to ace, those cards are lifted off the table and are out of the game.
Only how many suits are in play. One suit (usually all spades) is the easiest, because every run matches. Two suits usually uses spades and hearts. Four suits is the classic game with real cards, and the hardest.
One suit. In the Microsoft version the three levels are named Beginner (one suit), Intermediate (two suits) and Advanced (four suits).
In Microsoft's Spider you start with 500 points, lose 1 point for every move (an undo counts as a move), and gain 100 points for every completed run. Spider with real cards has no official score: you just count your completed runs.
In Microsoft's Spider, a won game scores 1,300 minus the number of moves and undos you made: the 500 you start with plus 100 for each of the eight runs. So the fewer moves you use, the higher your score.
In Microsoft's Spider, yes: you can undo as many moves as you like, back to the last move that cannot be taken back (such as a deal from the stock). Each undo costs 1 point.
In Microsoft's Spider, press H (Windows Vista or later) or M and the game highlights a possible move. Other apps usually have a Hint button instead.
No, but nearly all are. Some deals are impossible from the start: for example, if the ten face-up cards are all of two ranks and every card they could go on is face down. A solver program won 64,998 of 65,000 numbered deals of four-suit Spider, playing each one again after a loss.
In the standard four-suit game, a good player wins about 1 game in 3, according to Hoyle's Rules of Games. You lose when the stock is used up and you cannot make any more useful moves.
Spider is one kind of solitaire, a card game for one person. What most people call plain "Solitaire" (Klondike) uses one deck, seven columns and four piles built up from the aces. Spider uses two decks and ten columns, and you build complete runs inside the columns instead.
The usual explanation is the spider's eight legs, matching the eight runs you must complete to win. Wikipedia gives this but cites no source for it, so treat it as tradition rather than settled fact.
Every answer on this page was checked against the sources below, and against our own step-by-step guide.
