Spider Solitaire is the world's most popular two-deck patience game. The 104 cards are spread across ten columns, and your goal is to tidy the whole tableau by building descending runs from King down to Ace within a single suit. Complete such a run and the thirteen cards lift off the board automatically — clear all eight and you win.
You may stack any card onto one ranked exactly one higher, regardless of suit, but only an unbroken same-suit run can be picked up and moved together, so planning your sequences is everything. When you are stuck, deal a fresh row from the stock — but every column must hold at least one card first. This is free online Spider Solitaire you can play in browser with no download; fewer suits means an easier game.
Spider dates back to 1949 and takes its name from the eight foundation piles you must fill — one for each of a spider's eight legs. It was reportedly a favourite of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but its true global fame came when Microsoft bundled Spider Solitaire with Windows, introducing hundreds of millions of office workers to the two-deck patience game and quietly making it one of the most-played computer games in history.
The genius of Spider is its difficulty ladder. In the one-suit game you can move any run freely, so it is mostly about ordering your moves; the four-suit game, by contrast, is regarded as one of the hardest widely played solitaires, where even flawless play wins well under half the time. The pivotal skill is managing empty columns — a bare column is the only place you can park cards to untangle a blocked suit, so experts guard them jealously.
Assemble eight complete King-to-Ace single-suit sequences and clear every card from the table in as few moves as possible.
Tap a face-up card that starts a valid same-suit run to pick it up, then tap a destination column to drop it. Tap the stock pile in the top-left corner to deal a new row of ten cards.
Your move count is tracked, so aim for the fewest moves. You can only deal a new row when no column is empty. Difficulty sets the number of suits: Easy = 1, Medium = 2, Hard = 4.
Expose face-down cards and empty columns early — an empty column is the most powerful tool you have. Build long same-suit runs whenever possible so they can move as a unit, and think twice before dealing a new row, since it covers every column at once.
Why can't I move a sequence of cards together?
Only an unbroken run of the same suit moves as a unit. A mixed-suit sequence is still valid stacking, but you'll have to move it one card at a time.
What happens when I deal from the stock?
One new card lands face-up on every column, burying whatever was there. You cannot deal while any column is empty, so fill gaps first.
When does a suit leave the board?
The moment you assemble a complete King-to-Ace run in a single suit, it flies off to a foundation. Do that eight times to win.
More classic games: Klondike, FreeCell, Pyramid, TriPeaks, Golf, and all 100 free games.