Spider solitaire is the great two-deck patience game, and it rewards patience in every sense of the word. Where the classic single-deck games are quick to grasp, Spider gives you a wider board, more cards, and a satisfying long game of untangling columns until eight complete suits lift away. If you have ever opened it, moved a few cards, and then felt stuck, this guide is for you. By the end you will understand exactly how to play Spider solitaire from the first deal to the final winning move.
We will walk through the setup, the goal, every legal move, and the rhythm of dealing from the stock. Along the way you will pick up the habits that separate a hopeless shuffle from a genuinely winnable game. You can follow along live by opening Spider in another tab and matching each step to the board in front of you.
The Goal of Spider Solitaire
Spider is played with two full decks of cards, 104 cards in total. Because there are two decks, every card appears twice, and every suit appears twice. Your single objective is to arrange all of those cards into eight complete runs, each running from King down to Ace in the same suit. Each time you finish one of those King-to-Ace runs, the game removes it from the board automatically. Clear all eight and you win.
That is the whole game in one sentence, but the challenge lives in the details: you build downward, you can only move cards under specific conditions, and you have a limited supply of fresh cards waiting in the stock. Understanding those constraints is what turns Spider from frustrating to fascinating.
Setting Up the Board
When a game of Spider begins, the 104 cards are dealt into ten columns across the top of the table, called the tableau. The deal is slightly uneven, which is worth knowing.
- The four left columns each receive six cards.
- The six right columns each receive five cards.
- That accounts for 54 cards, leaving 50 cards face down in the stock at the bottom of the screen.
- In every column, only the bottom card is turned face up; the rest sit face down beneath it.
So you start each game seeing just ten face-up cards, with a large hidden layer underneath and a deep stock in reserve. The face-down cards are your central problem: you cannot use them until you expose them, and you expose them by moving the face-up cards that cover them.
The Legal Moves in Spider
Spider has a small set of rules for moving cards, and once they click, the whole game opens up.
Building Down by Rank
You place cards on top of one another in descending order, one rank at a time. A 9 goes on a 10, an 8 goes on a 9, a Jack goes on a Queen, and so on. Crucially, in Spider you may build down regardless of suit or colour. You can legally drop a red 6 onto a black 7. That flexibility keeps the game moving, but it comes with a catch that governs whether you can pick those cards back up again.
Moving Runs of the Same Suit
A single card can always move to a valid spot. A group of cards, however, can only be lifted and moved together if they form a run of the same suit in perfect descending order. If you have a 10, 9, 8 all in spades sitting in sequence, you can slide all three onto a Jack in one move. But if that same 10, 9, 8 is a mix of suits, you can only move the bottom card at a time. This single rule is why experienced players work so hard to keep their sequences in one suit.
Emptying and Filling Columns
When you clear every card out of a column, you create an empty column, which is the most valuable real estate in Spider. Any card, or any movable same-suit run, can be placed into an empty column. Empty columns act as workspace, letting you shuffle cards around to reorganise the board.
Completing and Removing a Suit
The moment you assemble a full run from King down to Ace in a single suit, that run is complete. In Spider that finished sequence is lifted off the board and set aside, freeing up the column beneath it. You need to build eight of these complete suit runs to clear all 104 cards and win the game. Every removed suit is a milestone, and each one you achieve makes the remaining board a little easier to manage.
Dealing from the Stock
When you run out of useful moves, you turn to the stock for fresh cards. Clicking the stock deals one new face-up card onto the bottom of every one of the ten columns at once. This is where a strict rule catches many beginners by surprise.
- You may only deal when no column is empty. Every one of the ten columns must contain at least one card before the game will let you deal.
- If you have an empty column, you must fill it first before the stock will release its next row.
- Each deal adds ten cards, so the stock's 50 cards support exactly five deals across a game.
- Once the stock is empty, no new cards arrive, and you must finish with what is on the table.
Because dealing floods every column with a new card, it can bury tidy sequences under mismatched cards. Good players delay dealing until they have squeezed every possible move out of the current board, and they try to avoid leaving an empty column right before a deal, since that empty space would be immediately covered. To see this in action, open Spider and watch how the board changes each time you deal.
A Simple First-Game Plan
Knowing the rules is one thing; knowing what to do first is another. For your very first games, follow a simple plan that prioritises the right goals.
- Expose face-down cards early. Every hidden card you flip gives you new options, so prioritise moves that turn one face up.
- Build in suit whenever you can. Prefer dropping a card onto the same suit so your sequences stay movable.
- Protect your empty columns. Do not fill an empty column carelessly; it is your most flexible tool.
- Look before you deal. Exhaust every move before clicking the stock, because a deal is permanent.
These habits will not guarantee a win, but they will transform your results from random to reliable. Spider is a game where thinking one move ahead pays off enormously.
Where to Go Next
Once the basics feel natural, the next step is to sharpen your decision-making. Our guide to the full Spider solitaire rules explained digs deeper into the edge cases, while our Spider solitaire strategy tips show you how to plan several moves ahead. If you are wondering how hard to make things, one-suit vs two-suit vs four-suit Spider explains the difficulty levels so you can choose the right challenge as you improve.
Spider also has relatives worth exploring. If two decks feel like a lot at first, the single-deck Klondike is a gentler warm-up, and the spider-family Scorpion uses similar ideas with a tactical twist once you are ready for something new.
Conclusion
Playing Spider solitaire comes down to a handful of clear rules: deal into ten columns, build down by rank, keep same-suit runs together so they move as a group, complete King-to-Ace suits to remove them, and deal from the stock only when no column is empty. Master those and the game stops feeling random and starts feeling like a puzzle you can solve. Ready to play? Open the free Spider board now and put these rules into practice, or browse every game and guide on the spidersolitairecardgames.com homepage to keep improving.