Spider Solitaire is a fun, and very well-known solitaire game, that requires patience and careful planning. It is very hard
solitaire game, with games often taking more than half an hour of continual thought.
The aim of spider solitaire is to build ascending suit sequences in the foundation zone. But this is easier said than done!
Particularly when playing 4 suit spider solitaire, it can sometimes seem nearly impossible to finish the game.
There are certain strategies you can use though, to dramatically increase your chances of winning. These strategies are quite
easy to understand, but can make a big difference to your winning percentage.
But before I go into that, a quick note. In this article, I assume you are playing a solitaire game that allows multi-undo
(Like Classic Solitaire), and that you don't mind using it. Some people don't have a solitaire program that supports multi-level undo, or feel that
using undo is somehow "cheating". These people will still get something out of this article, but not everything they read
may apply.
So what is the secret to winning Spider Solitaire?
Empty Columns!
The first thing you must always aim for in spider solitaire is to free up a column. After that, you should try and get another vacant column. When you have 2 vacant columns, the chances of winning are much higher, but if you can, try and form yet another
empty column.
Once you get to 3 or 4 empty columns, you can almost guarantee a win, unless you get an extremely unlucky run of cards.
The first move you should make in spider solitaire is whatever the highest rank card that can play is. When you have a choice,
try to play from the stacks on the right hand side, as the 6 right hand stacks start with one less card.
From then on, you should play cards in this order or priority:
You should keep playing like this, until either a column is emptied, or you run out of moves
Once you have emptied a column, the focus of spider solitaire changes a little.
There are now three main objectives, "cleanup", "re-arrange", and "expose".
An overriding principal at this time is to try and keep the empty columns. Vacant columns give you a lot more choices in the
game, and whenever possible, you only want to fill your empty columns temporarily.
The first objective for the second phase of the spider solitaire is "cleanup". This is my term for re-arranging columns so
that they become same-suit sequences.
For example, suppose you are at the following stage:
Notice the Jack of Hearts on the Queen of Clubs, and the Jack, 10, and 9 of Clubs on the Queen of Hearts. This is a perfect
position to re-arrange the cards to form better same suit sequences, by temporarily using the empty column...
Move the Jack of Clubs to the empty column...
Move the Jack of Hearts across...
And move the Jack of Clubs back again, to form 2 same suite sequences.
The important thing to note here, is that after we have finished cleaning up this sequence, the empty column is still vacant.
This is critical point, because whenever you can you always want to keep as many columns empty as you can.
After you have cleaned up any card sequences you can find, the next thing to do in spider solitaire is to re-arrange any columns
that you can. This is simply moving any sequences you can, to form longer sequences.
If moving the sequence will expose a new card (or a card that is not part of the sequence), then you should always move it.
The rest of the time it's a judgement call, based on whether the new sequence will be the same suit, as well as what other
cards are holding up the game at the moment.
The last thing you should do in spider solitaire is to try and expose new cards, whilst trying to maintain any empty columns.
You do this by using multi-level undo:
If the new exposed card does not allow us to move it back, then undo, and try moving a different card/sequence instead. If
you can't expose any new cards whilst keeping the vacant column, then try dealing some cards from the talon.
Just remember, the most important thing in spider solitaire is to create empty columns, and try and keep them empty!