Spider Solitaire rules
Spider is played with two decks, 104 cards. Fifty-four are dealt into ten columns, with only the bottom card of each column face up; the other fifty wait in the stock. Your goal is to build eight complete runs from king down to ace. A finished run is removed from the table, and when all eight are gone, you win.
- You can put a card on any card exactly one rank higher: a 7 on an 8, a queen on a king.
- You can move a group of cards together only if they are in order and all the same suit.
- Any card or valid group can go into an empty column.
- When a face-down card is uncovered, it turns face up.
- Tapping the stock deals one new card onto every column.
What changes with 2 suits
In one-suit Spider every card is a spade, so any downward run moves as a group. With 2 suits, half the cards are spades and half are hearts. You may still put a heart 7 on a spade 8, but that mixed run is stuck: you can move the 7 alone, never the 8 and 7 together, and it will never clear. Only a king-to-ace run of a single suit leaves the table.
That one rule makes Spider Solitaire 2 suits much harder to win than one suit, and much more about planning. On Arena13, tap the suits button above the cards to switch between 1 suit and 2 suits. Switching deals a new game. In a two-suit game spades are drawn in black and hearts in red, so mixed runs are easy to spot.
How to play Spider Solitaire, step by step
- Look for moves that turn over a face-down card. Uncovering cards is the whole game.
- Prefer moves that build in suit: a spade on a spade, a heart on a heart.
- Use off-suit moves only when they uncover a card or free a column.
- Make every useful move before you deal from the stock, because a deal covers all ten columns.
- When a column is empty, use it to untangle a mixed run, then try to fill it with a king.
Spider Solitaire 2 suits strategy
- Empty a column early. A free column is the most powerful tool in the game. It lets you move a stuck run piece by piece and re-sort mixed suits.
- Suit beats length. A short run in one suit is worth more than a long mixed one, because only same-suit runs move and clear.
- Fix mixed runs when you can. If a heart 6 sits on a spade 7 and a heart 7 is free elsewhere, move the 6 across to make the run clean.
- Don't bury kings. A king can only move into an empty column, so avoid dealing a king onto a column you need.
- Use undo to explore. Two-suit games often hinge on one choice. Trying a line and taking it back is part of playing well.
Scoring
You start with 500 points. Every move, deal and undo costs one point, the first hint for a position costs one too, and every completed run adds 100. Fewer moves mean a higher score, and a won game goes to the Spider Solitaire leaderboard.
