How to play Spider Solitaire
Spider is the big solitaire — two full decks, one hundred and four cards, dealt into ten columns. You win by clearing eight complete runs from king down to ace, all of one suit. It starts you on one suit, where every card counts as a spade and anything in order can be picked up; two suits and four suits are one tap away when you want the real thing.
How to play
- Build downwards in rank on any card, whatever its suit — a nine goes on a ten even if the colours clash.
- You can only pick up several cards at once if they are the same suit and in order. That gap between what you can place and what you can move is the whole game.
- Complete a king-to-ace run of one suit and it lifts off the table by itself. Clear all eight and you win.
- Out of moves? Deal a row from the stock — one new card onto every column. You get five deals.
- You cannot deal at all while a column is empty, so an empty column has to be refilled before the stock will help you.
Tips & strategy
- Turn over face-down cards first. Every one you flip is information you did not have.
- Prefer moves that keep a suit together. A mixed pile looks tidy and is much harder to unpick later.
- Keep a column empty for as long as you can — it is the only place you can park a card of any rank.
- Before you deal a row, use up the moves you already have. A deal covers everything, including the pile you were about to finish.
Accessibility
Fully playable by touch, keyboard and screen reader, with no dragging: tap a card, then tap where it goes, and every legal move is also a full-size labelled button beneath the table. With two decks in play, each move button names the column a card is coming FROM as well as where it is going, so two identical cards are never offered as the same choice. Face-down cards are counted and never named, including in "Read the whole table".