One Suit, Two Suits, or Four?
Spider Solitaire scales with you. The one-suit game teaches the rhythm — building runs from King to Ace and clearing them off the board — and most deals can be won once you learn to keep columns flexible. Two suits adds a real planning layer, because mixed-suit runs can only move one card at a time. Four suits is the expert's game, where even strong players lose more than they win. Start with one suit and move up when you win consistently.
Spider Solitaire Rules
Spider Solitaire uses two decks (104 cards) and is played with 10 tableau columns. It's considered more challenging than Klondike.
- Deal 54 cards into 10 columns: the first 4 columns get 6 cards, the remaining 6 columns get 5 cards. Only the top card of each column is face-up.
- The remaining 50 cards form the stock, divided into 5 deals of 10 cards each.
- Build tableau columns in descending order. You can place any card on a card that's one rank higher, regardless of suit.
- Only same-suit descending sequences can be moved as a group.
- When a complete King-to-Ace sequence of the same suit is formed, it's automatically removed from play.
- To deal from the stock, all 10 tableau columns must contain at least one card.
- The game is won when all 8 complete sequences have been removed.
Spider Solitaire Tips
- Build same-suit sequences whenever possible, even if it means making fewer moves.
- Use empty columns to reorganize cards, then refill every empty column before dealing from the stock.
- Use off-suit builds as temporary storage, but plan to reorganize them later.
- Focus on completing one sequence at a time rather than partially building several.
- Avoid dealing from the stock until you've exhausted all useful tableau moves.
What is the difference between 1-suit, 2-suit, and 4-suit Spider Solitaire?
1-suit Spider uses only spades and is the easiest. 2-suit uses spades and hearts for a moderate challenge. 4-suit uses all four suits and is by far the hardest: solver studies find about 98% of deals are solvable in principle, but with the cards face-down most players win only a small fraction of them.
Is every game of Solitaire winnable?
No. Solver studies (Blake & Gent, 2024) put the share of Klondike deals that can be solved with full knowledge of the cards at roughly 82% for draw-three and 90% for draw-one; FreeCell is solvable in about 99.999% of deals, and even 4-suit Spider in about 98%. Real win rates are far lower, because the face-down cards are unknown while you play.
How many cards are used in Solitaire?
Standard Klondike, FreeCell, and most variants use one 52-card deck. Spider Solitaire and Forty Thieves use two decks (104 cards).