Ask any strong Spider solitaire player what wins games, and empty columns will be near the top of the list. To a beginner an empty column just looks like a gap, but to an experienced player it is the single most valuable thing on the board: a piece of open workspace that unlocks moves impossible anywhere else. Learning to create, protect, and exploit empty columns is one of the biggest leaps you can make. This guide explains exactly why empty columns matter in Spider and how to make the most of them.
By the end you will understand what makes an empty column so powerful, how to open one without wrecking the rest of your board, and the mistakes that waste them. Keep a live Spider game open and watch how your options expand the moment a column comes free.
What Makes an Empty Column So Powerful
An empty column is the only place in Spider where you can put absolutely anything. Any single card, and any same-suit run in descending order, can be moved into an empty column. Nowhere else on the board offers that freedom, because every other move must respect the descending-rank rule.
A Universal Landing Spot
Normally, a card can only go onto another card one rank higher. A King, being the highest card, has nowhere to go at all except an empty column. That alone makes empty space precious: without it, Kings and the cards buried under them can become permanently stuck. An empty column gives every card, including Kings, somewhere to move.
Room to Reorganise
Beyond parking Kings, an empty column is a staging area. You can temporarily move a run out of the way, dig out a face-down card, then rebuild the sequence in a better order. This ability to shuffle cards around is what turns a tangled, stuck-looking board into a winnable one. Without workspace, you can only react to what the board hands you; with it, you can actively engineer the position you want.
How Empty Columns Help You Win
Empty columns contribute to a win in several concrete ways, and recognising them helps you value the space correctly.
- Freeing buried cards: Move a blocking run aside to expose the face-down cards beneath it.
- Consolidating suits: Gather scattered same-suit cards into one clean descending run.
- Relocating Kings: Give high cards a home so they stop trapping useful cards underneath.
- Absorbing awkward cards: Park a card that has nowhere else to go while you rearrange the rest.
- Setting up suit removals: Assemble the final pieces of a King-to-Ace run so it can be completed and removed.
Each of these moves is either difficult or outright impossible without an empty column, which is why opening one so often marks the turning point of a game.
How to Create an Empty Column
Because empty columns are so valuable, working toward one should be a constant background goal. Here is a practical approach to opening a column.
- Target the shortest column. Focus on the column with the fewest cards, especially the fewest face-down cards, since it is the quickest to clear.
- Expose and remove its face-down cards. Turn its hidden cards face up, then move them onto sequences in other columns.
- Build the last cards elsewhere. Place the final face-up cards onto matching runs in other columns until the column is bare.
- Prefer in-suit moves as you go. Keeping runs in one suit while you empty a column preserves your ability to move them later.
- Do not deal until it is done. A deal will drop a card into every column, so finish emptying before you touch the stock.
Opening that first column early in a game gives you a huge advantage, because you can use it to keep the board organised through the deals that follow.
How to Use an Empty Column Wisely
Creating an empty column is only half the battle; using it well is the other half. The most common way players waste their hard work is by filling the space too quickly or with the wrong card.
Do Not Plug It With a Lone King
It is tempting to immediately drop a stranded King into an empty column to tidy the board, but this often just recreates a stuck position with no workspace left. Only place a King there when doing so clearly advances your plan, such as starting a run you intend to build down to Ace.
Keep It Open as Long as It Helps
An empty column is often more valuable kept empty than filled. Treat it as flexible workspace you can use repeatedly to shuffle cards around, and only commit it to a permanent stack when the payoff, like exposing several face-down cards or setting up a suit removal, is worth losing the space. This restraint is a hallmark of skilled play and pairs directly with our broader Spider solitaire strategy tips.
Empty Columns and the Stock Deal
There is a crucial interaction between empty columns and dealing from the stock. Spider will not let you deal a new row while any column is empty; every column must hold at least one card first. This creates a genuine tension. You want to keep an empty column open as workspace, but you cannot deal until it is filled.
The practical takeaway is timing. Use your empty column to do all the reorganising you can, and only fill it, deliberately and usefully, when you are truly ready to deal. Never deal with an empty column sitting open by accident, because the deal will immediately cover it with a random card and squander the space. Managing this trade-off is a big part of learning how to win Spider solitaire more often, and mishandling it appears in our list of common Spider solitaire mistakes.
Open Space in Related Games
The value of open workspace is not unique to Spider; it runs through the whole solitaire family, which is why the habit is worth building. In the spider-family Scorpion, empty columns are just as prized, because that game lets you move any face-up card with everything on top of it, and an open column gives you somewhere to unload a large, messy stack while you dig for a buried card. The classic single-deck Klondike works differently, building up onto foundations, yet even there an empty tableau column is the only home for a King and a crucial staging point for reorganising the board. Once you internalise how much an empty column is worth in Spider, you will instinctively fight for open space in every patience game you play, and that instinct alone will lift your results. The lesson is universal: space is power, and the player who controls the open columns usually controls the game.
Conclusion
Empty columns are the beating heart of Spider strategy. They are the only place any card, including a King, can go, and the only workspace that lets you reorganise the board rather than merely react to it. Work toward opening a column early by clearing the shortest one, then guard that space, refusing to plug it with a lone King or fill it before you must. Respect its interaction with the stock, and you will find games opening up that once felt hopeless. Ready to put open columns to work? Launch the free Spider board now and aim to empty a column early. Explore every guide and game on the spidersolitairecardgames.com homepage whenever you want to go deeper.