The deal
Spider is played with two full decks, 104 cards. The first four columns get six cards each and the remaining six columns get five, for 54 cards on the table. Only the bottom card of each column is face-up. The other 50 cards form the stock, dealt five at a time.
How cards move
- You build columns in descending order — a 7 goes on an 8, a 6 on a 7.
- Unlike Klondike, colour does not matter for a single move. Any card can sit on any card one rank higher.
- You may move a face-up run together only if every card in it is the same suit and in descending order.
- An empty column accepts any card or same-suit run.
- When a full King-to-Ace run in one suit is assembled, it is removed to a completed pile.
That third rule is where games are made and lost. Two cards of the same rank in different suits stacked together can never move as a pair, no matter how tidy they look.
What the stock does
Dealing from the stock places one new card face-up on every column at once. You cannot deal while any column is empty — a rule that quietly punishes you for clearing a column at the wrong moment. Each deal adds ten cards of mess, so deal only when you genuinely have nothing left to arrange.
Why the suit count changes everything
One-suit Spider deals every card as spades; two-suit uses spades and hearts; four-suit uses all four. The move rules never change. What changes is how often you can actually move a run.
| Version | Face-up cards you can move together | Feel |
|---|---|---|
| One suit | Any correctly ordered run | Forgiving — you are mostly sorting |
| Two suits | Only same-suit runs | The balance point; real decisions appear |
| Four suits | Rarely more than one or two cards | Every move must earn its place |
In one-suit Spider, a long ordered run is almost always movable, so the game is about patience. In four-suit, the same run is usually frozen — you can see the order you want but cannot act on it. That is why the same layout can feel easy at one suit and brutal at four.
Reading the board before your first move
Spend a few seconds doing nothing but looking. Count the Aces and Kings you can already see, and note which columns have the deepest face-down stacks — those are the ones you want to dig into first.
- Kings are the only cards that can start a completed run, so getting them into empty columns is a long-term goal.
- Aces buried under a tower take the longest to free; identify them early.
- Columns with many face-down cards hide the most information — uncovering them is usually the highest-value move on the board.
Once the rules feel natural, the next step is the thinking behind them. Read Spider Solitaire strategy for how to sequence moves, or play Spider Solitaire now and come back to it. If the full four-suit version is more your mood, it is waiting at four-suit Spider.
