Games

Spider Strategy

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To win Spider, keep the board open: turn over a hidden card whenever you can, and spend every useful move before you deal from the stock. You build eight complete runs from king down to ace, and each finished run vanishes from the table.

Spider looks like a bigger, slower Klondike, but it plays differently. Nothing goes to a foundation, so there is no safe place to hurry cards to. This guide gives rules you can check before each move, written for the one-suit game on the Spider page with notes on what changes when suits are mixed. The rules are on the game page, and unfamiliar words are in the glossary.

What the board gives you

You start with ten columns: the first four hold six cards, the other six hold five, and only the top card of each is face up. That is 54 cards on the table. The other 50 sit in the stock as five batches of ten, and each deal puts one card on every column.

Two rules shape everything. A deal is blocked while any column is empty, and an empty column can take any card, not just a king. So an empty column is both your best parking space and an obstacle to the next deal. Most of the strategy below is about managing that tension.

Every default deal comes from a pool that an offline solver has checked. The solver sees every card, so a pool deal can still be hard for you. Use undo to test ideas; it is unlimited.

Decision rules, in order

  1. Turn over a hidden card whenever you can. Open the board before you shape it.
  2. Among moves that open a card, pick the column with the fewest hidden cards. A column you can finish emptying soon is worth more than a half-dug tall one.
  3. Choose the placement that covers the least useful card. If a 6 could land on either of two 7s, put it on the 7 whose column you will not need to reach soon.
  4. With several suits, build on your own suit when you have a choice. A same-suit pair moves together later. In the one-suit game every placement qualifies, so rule 3 decides.
  5. Spend every useful move before you deal. A deal puts ten new cards on the table and often buries what you needed.
  6. Never deal into a half-finished plan. The cards you add will land on every column, including any run you meant to keep clean.

Worked examples

Emptying a short column

Column 8 has three cards left: two face down and a black 4 on top. Another column shows a red 5 as its top card. Move the 4 onto the 5, turn over the card beneath, and see what it is. If the next card also has a home, you are two moves from an empty column. Do not stop to rearrange a column with eight hidden cards while this one is that close. Short columns first is the Spider version of picking the cheapest door.

Dealing with a gap

You have just emptied column 3, and the stock still holds two batches. A lone 9 could drop into the gap, which would let you deal at once. Hold off. Column 6 ends in a long run on top of a face-down card, and the gap is the only place that run can wait. Move the run into column 3, turn the card beneath it, and see whether it opens a play. Only then fill a gap and deal. An empty column is worth most when it lets you reach a card that was otherwise sealed.

Not covering the low cards

An ace is the end of a finished run and usually the last card of it to arrive. If a lone ace sits at the bottom of a column and you pile ten cards on it, the only way to complete that suit is to dig that column out again. Before you stack, look at which low cards are open. Keep the column that holds the ace as clean as the rest allows.

Ordering your runs

A run only moves as a unit if it is ordered and in one suit. In the one-suit game every descending run qualifies. With two or four suits it does not. A red 8 on a black 9 is legal to build, yet the pair can never move together. Prefer the same suit when you place a card, and do not bury a card of one suit under a card of another when you can wait a move.

Common mistakes

Endgame

When the stock is gone, you have ten columns and no new cards, so everything left is on the table. Count the missing ranks for each run. A run is finished only when a king is at the base with every rank down to the ace stacked on it, so make sure no king is buried under cards that cannot move.

Keep one empty column for the last phase. Moving a long run into the gap exposes cards that nothing else will reach. If every column is occupied and no card has a home, the game is stuck. With a gap, you can often move forward by a single card.

Checklist before each move

Frequently asked questions

Which column should I empty first?

The one with the fewest cards, as long as emptying it does not leave all your moves blocked. Short columns finish quickly.

Should I save empty columns or use them?

Use them to move runs and uncover cards, then refill them so you can deal. Keeping a gap open forever stops the deals.

Does the order I place cards matter in one suit?

Less than with several suits, but it still decides which cards stay buried. Place for access, not for neatness.

How many deals do I get?

Five, each of ten cards. After the fifth, the stock is empty.

Is there a score?

Not in this version. The page shows time, moves and how many of the eight runs you have removed.

Keep reading

Play Spider, check the rules step by step, or look up a word in the glossary. A different kind of planning awaits in the FreeCell strategy guide.