Spider solitaire is the big, patient cousin of Klondike, played with two full decks across ten columns. There are no foundation piles to feed one card at a time; instead you assemble complete King-to-Ace sequences in a single suit right in the tableau, and each finished run of thirteen is lifted off the board. Clear all eight runs and you win. It's free, needs no download, and comes with undo and hints — a meatier, more deliberate solitaire for when you want a game that unfolds over many moves.
How to play Spider solitaire
Two decks — 104 cards — are dealt into ten columns. The first four columns hold six cards each and the remaining six hold five, so 54 cards start face-down with only the bottom card of each column exposed; the other 50 cards wait in the stock. You build downward regardless of colour — any nine goes on any ten — but the payoff comes only from cards of the same suit. A run of cards in one suit and in order moves as a block; a mixed-suit descending stack still helps you shuffle cards around but can't be relieved as a group. When a column reaches an unbroken King-down-to-Ace in one suit, that thirteen-card run is automatically removed, and clearing a column outright gives you a free landing space for anything. When you run dry, tap the stock to deal one new card onto every column at once — which is why you must never leave a column empty at deal time. Prefer feeding foundations? Try Klondike instead.
Spider solitaire strategy & tips
Spider is won or lost by how disciplined you are about suits. Whenever there's a choice, place a card on one of the same suit so your growing runs stay clean and can be moved in one piece later — a nine of spades on a ten of spades is worth far more than the same nine on a red ten. Attack the face-down cards aggressively, because a buried card blocks everything on top of it, and try to keep at least one empty column in reserve: it's a workshop where you can temporarily unstack a mixed pile to sort it by suit. Before you tap the stock, tidy the board as much as possible, since a fresh deal drops a card on every column and can bury your careful work. If the one-suit game feels too gentle, switch to two-suit or four-suit Spider, where colour discipline becomes the whole battle.
Spider solitaire difficulty & the three suit levels
Spider's difficulty is set entirely by how many suits are in play. One-suit Spider uses two decks of a single suit, so every descending run is automatically same-suit — it's an excellent way to learn the rhythm and is winnable most of the time. Two-suit Spider introduces a second suit and forces real choices about which stacks to keep pure. Four-suit Spider is the full game and one of the hardest solitaires in wide circulation; even strong players win only a minority of deals, and success leans heavily on unlimited undo and patient planning. Unlike Klondike, much of Spider's difficulty is skill-based rather than luck-based, so improvement is very noticeable — the more carefully you manage suits and empty columns, the higher your win rate climbs.