How to Play Spider Solitaire: seven techniques for 1, 2 and 4 suits
Spider punishes tidiness. A neat descending row of mixed suits looks like progress and moves like a pile of loose cards. These seven are about building things that can actually travel, and about the deal — which in Spider is a threat as much as a resource.
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Only same-suit runs move as a unit
A run of alternating suits is not a run. It sits there and travels one card at a time. In 2 and 4 suits, judge every build by whether it keeps a single suit together, not by whether the numbers descend.
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An empty column blocks the deal
You cannot deal while any column is empty. That makes an empty column two things at once: your strongest workspace, and a lock on the stock. Decide which you need before you clear the last card.
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Spend every useful move before dealing
The deal drops one card on every column, and it lands on top of whatever you were building. Anything you could have moved first is now buried under a card you did not choose.
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Turn face-down cards before cosmetics
As in Klondike, hidden cards are the only real unknown. A move that reveals one is worth more than a move that makes the board look organised.
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Finish the column that is closest to done
A completed king-to-ace run leaves the board entirely and takes its column with it. Concentrating on the nearest one converts effort into permanent space, instead of spreading progress across columns that all stay stuck.
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Play 1 suit greedily, 4 suits cautiously
With one suit every descending build is a real run, so take the space. With four, a build you cannot move later is worse than no build — keep low cards reachable and columns short enough to unpack.
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Use undo to test the deal, not to fish
Before dealing, it is worth stepping a move back to see whether a different order leaves fewer columns exposed. That is planning. Repeatedly undoing to hunt for a lucky deal just hides where the position went wrong.
If you only take one thing: never deal while a move remains. More Spider games are lost to an early deal than to any card that came out of it.