Spider is a solitaire played with two decks and ten columns. Your job is to build eight full runs from king down to ace, and each finished run leaves the table by itself.

How to play

You start with ten columns. Four of them hold six cards and six hold five, with only the top card of each face up. The other 50 cards wait in the stock, which is five deals of ten cards.

Building: put a card on any card that is exactly one rank higher. The suit does not matter, so a 6 of clubs can go on a 7 of hearts.
Moving: a group of cards moves together only when they are the same suit and in order, like a 9, 8, 7 of spades. A mixed group cannot be lifted.
Empty columns take any card or any movable group.
Dealing: tap the stock to put one new card face up on every column. Every column must hold at least one card first, so fill your empty columns before you deal.
Finishing a run: when a column ends with king, queen and so on down to ace of one suit, that run slides off to the side. You win after eight of them.

On a phone, tap a card to send it to its best place, or drag it. A tap prefers a column that continues the same suit. On a computer, click or drag with the mouse. The bar at the top shows how many deals are left and how many runs are done out of eight. Undo and Hint are always there.

The levels

The difference is how many suits are in the two decks.

Easy: one suit. Every card counts as the same suit, so every ordered run moves together.
Medium: two suits. Runs only move together when they are one suit.
Hard: all four suits. This is the classic game, and the hardest.

Unlike some of the other solitaires here, Spider deals are plain fresh shuffles. The site does not check them in advance, so a few deals can be unwinnable. In the project's own test, a computer that simply followed the Hint button won 30 of 100 one-suit deals, 10 of 100 two-suit deals and none of 100 four-suit deals. The Hint button is only a helper, but the drop shows how steeply the game gets harder.

Today's game

The daily game is an Easy deal. Everyone who plays on the same calendar day gets the same shuffle, so you can compare how it went.

Tips

Start on one suit and stay there until the idea feels natural. The jump to four suits is large.
Aim to empty a column early. An empty column lets you shuffle cards around and also lets you deal again.
Before you deal, look for moves. Each deal covers ten cards at once and can bury the ones you were working on.
Build same-suit runs when you can. If you must put a card on a different suit, expect to move it again.
Prefer moves that turn over a face-down card. New cards show you where things are.
Avoid piling mixed suits in one column. They cannot be lifted as a group, so they block everything beneath them.
When a column is nearly a full run, think twice before covering it.

A bit of history

Spider belongs to the large family of patience games. The version with two decks and ten columns became very well known once it came to home computers.

Questions

Can I deal when a column is empty? No. The classic rule applies here: every column must hold a card before you can deal from the stock.

Is every Spider deal winnable? Not necessarily. These deals are shuffled but not checked, so a rare one may have no win. If you suspect that, use Undo or start a new deal.

Why can't I move this group of cards? A group only moves when every card in it is the same suit and the ranks run in order. Look for a mixed suit or a missing rank.

What does Hint do? It points at a move that looks useful. When none helps, it says so. After that, fill an empty column or deal.

Spider Solitaire