Spider rewards cleanup, structure, and patience.

History and background

Spider Solitaire takes its name from the eight foundation piles required to win — one for each leg of a spider. The game is thought to have origins in nineteenth-century patience traditions, but its widespread popularity came when Microsoft included it with Windows 98, where it shipped with three difficulty settings that introduced most players to the 1-suit, 2-suit, and 4-suit versions.

Spider uses two standard 52-card decks (104 cards total). The goal is to build all eight complete King-through-Ace sequences of the same suit and remove them from the tableau. The difficulty depends almost entirely on how many suits are in play. With one suit, card values are the only thing that matters. With four suits, nearly every move requires weighing color and suit consequences.

How the game is set up

The 104 cards are dealt face-down into ten tableau columns. The first four columns receive six cards each and the remaining six columns receive five cards each. The top card of each column is then turned face-up. The remaining 50 cards form the stock, which deals one card to each column when you choose to draw.

• Tableau movement — Cards build downward in rank. In 1-suit Spider, any color sequence is legal. In 4-suit Spider, only same-suit sequences are legal to move as a unit (though you can place any card individually on any lower-ranked card).
• Automatic removal — A complete King-through-Ace run in the same suit is automatically removed from the tableau and placed on a foundation. No manual move is needed.
• Empty columns — Any single card or legal sequence can be placed in an empty column. Empty columns are the most valuable resource in the game.

The game is won when all eight suit-runs have been completed and removed.

Same-suit runs vs. mixed-suit runs

This is the central strategic distinction in Spider. A same-suit run (for example, a red-suited J–10–9–8 all in hearts) can be moved as a unit to any card of the right rank and extended upward. It will eventually become part of a completed foundation run.

A mixed-suit run (a red J, black 10, red 9) can be moved as a unit in 1-suit Spider but cannot be moved as a unit in 2-suit or 4-suit Spider. In those harder modes, a mixed run must be disassembled card-by-card before the underlying cards become accessible, consuming free columns in the process.

The practical implication: before placing a card on a tableau sequence, ask whether you are building or contaminating. If the sequence you are extending is same-suit and your card continues that suit, build it. If the suits differ, treat the move as a temporary measure and plan for how you will untangle it.

Empty columns: the core resource

In Spider, empty columns are rarer and more valuable than in any other common solitaire variant. Each empty column allows you to temporarily stage a sequence while you rearrange other columns, and they enable the suit-separation work that higher-difficulty modes require.

Creating an empty column requires clearing all cards from one of the ten tableau positions. Early in the game, this means focusing your moves on collapsing short columns rather than spreading moves evenly across the board.

Once you have an empty column, protect it. Do not fill it with a card unless the move immediately creates a better board structure or sets up a suit completion within a small number of moves.

Stock timing: when to deal a new row

Drawing from the stock adds one card to the top of each column — it adds pressure to every position on the board simultaneously. The result is that premature stock deals are one of the most common ways to lose a winnable Spider game.

Before dealing from the stock, check whether meaningful cleanup moves remain available on the current tableau. “Meaningful” means moves that either:

• Build or extend a same-suit run that will eventually complete a foundation run.
• Create or protect an empty column.
• Consolidate a column that is close to being cleared entirely.

Cosmetic moves — shuffling cards around without improving suit purity or column counts — are not a reason to delay dealing. But if you have two or three genuinely productive moves available, exhaust them before drawing.

1-suit vs. 2-suit vs. 4-suit Spider

The three difficulty modes are genuinely different games in terms of strategy. Understanding the shift helps players who find 1-suit too easy or 4-suit impenetrable.

1-suit Spider

Every legal move is a genuinely good candidate because suit compatibility does not exist. The main strategic question is column management: which columns to collapse, when to deal, and how to time the eight foundation completions. Stock timing and empty column protection matter, but the lack of color restrictions means mistakes are recoverable far more often.

2-suit Spider

Color mixing becomes a real cost. A red sequence placed on a black sequence cannot move as a unit, meaning future cleanup requires empty columns. The game rewards thinking one or two steps ahead about color consequences before each move.

4-suit Spider

The hardest mode is largely a puzzle about suit separation. Almost any tableau move that crosses suit boundaries creates future work. The practical approach is to identify which suit-run you are trying to complete first, route cards toward that goal, and treat every empty column as an irreplaceable tool rather than a convenience. An expert 4-suit game might involve ten or more deliberate column clearings before a single foundation removal is possible.

Common mistakes

• Dealing from stock too early. Fresh stock cards add difficulty to every column and almost always reduce the chance of maintaining or recovering empty columns.
• Chasing foundation completions at the wrong time. Extending a suit run is satisfying, but if it blocks an empty column or buries an important card, the short-term gain creates a long-term problem.
• Filling empty columns with unproductive cards. Parking a card in an empty column is sometimes necessary, but it should be a deliberate choice with a clear plan for when and how that column becomes empty again.
• Spreading moves evenly across all columns. In 4-suit Spider especially, trying to make progress everywhere simultaneously produces ten columns of moderate chaos instead of a few clean ones. Consolidate before expanding.

Related Spider variants and how their strategies differ

Spider has several derivatives that share its core mechanics but alter key rules:

• Spiderette — One deck instead of two, seven columns instead of ten, Klondike-style layout. Much shorter game; the limited column count makes empty columns even harder to achieve.
• Relaxed Spider — When you deal from stock with empty columns, the deal is skipped for those columns rather than filling them. This removes one of the biggest punishments for maintaining empty columns, making the game more forgiving.
• Simple Simon — No stock at all; all cards are dealt face-up at the start. Pure tableau manipulation with complete information and no draw pressure.
• Mrs. Mop— Two decks, all cards dealt face-up from the start. Combines Spider’s suit-completion goal with complete information.