Spider Solitaire Strategy

1. Empty columns win games

In Spider an empty column accepts any card, which makes it the most valuable thing on the table — a workspace where you can park a card, split a mixed-suit pile, and reassemble it in suit. Work toward clearing a column from the opening deal: the columns with only five cards are the natural targets. Once you have one, do not fill it casually. Use it to make a move, then empty it again before you deal. Two empty columns let you take apart most mixed piles.

2. Build in suit, even when it costs a move

You are allowed to put a Seven of hearts on an Eight of spades, but every off-suit placement creates a pile that can no longer move as a unit. When you have the choice, put the card on its own suit — and if a same-suit target is one move away (say, a card that could be freed by moving something else first), make that move first. A useful test before any placement: "will I be able to pick this up again?" If the answer is no, look for a better home.

3. Uncover face-down cards first

Every face-down card is information you do not have and a card you cannot use. Prefer moves that flip a card over moves that merely rearrange face-up cards. Which column to dig when you have a choice is a matter of opinion: some players go for the column closest to being emptied (the fewest cards left), because an empty column is the prize; others dig where the most face-down cards remain, because that column is the likeliest long-term blockage. Early on, when no column is near empty, the four six-card columns hide the most.

4. Deal from the stock as late as possible

A deal drops a random card on every column, burying whatever order you built. So before you tap the stock: make every available move, then look again for a two-step move you missed. Try to deal onto a table where your runs are in suit and any empty column has been filled with a single high card (a King is ideal — a King can never be placed on another card, so the bottom of a column is the only place it can live anyway, and a deal on top of it costs you little). If you must fill an empty column just to deal, fill it with the card you will least regret burying.

5. Kings go to the bottom, Aces to the top

A King can never be placed on another card, so a King in the middle of a column is a permanent wall until a column is empty. Get Kings into empty columns (or leave them where they already sit at the bottom) and build the rest of the suit down onto them. Aces are the opposite problem: nothing goes on an Ace, so an Ace on top of a column blocks that column until you can move it onto a Two — ideally a Two of the same suit. Get Aces onto a Two as soon as one appears.

6. Undo discipline

Opinions differ on whether undo-peeking is "proper" Spider; on CardCouch undo is unlimited, and while you are learning it is the fastest teacher. Use it to peek: move a run, see what flips underneath, and undo if the reveal does not help. Use it to test a deal: deal, look at the ten new cards, and undo if the table is better served by one more tableau move first. The discipline is to undo with a plan — if you find yourself undoing the same move three times, stop and count the cards you still need before trying again.

7. Four-suit tactics

With four suits every placement has to be in suit to stay movable, so the game becomes about patience and bookkeeping:

• Count what is out. There are exactly two of every card. If both Nines of clubs are buried, no Eight of clubs can be built in suit until one of them is dug out — plan the club run around that.
• Keep the columns short. Spread cards across columns rather than stacking one column deep; long mixed piles are the four-suit killer.
• Split mixed piles through an empty column. Move the off-suit tail into the gap, move the same-suit part where it belongs, then bring the tail back onto a same-suit target.
• Finish a run whenever you can. Removing thirteen cards frees a huge amount of space — and it may empty a column outright.
• Accept that some deals are lost. Even good players win only a minority of four-suit deals. If the last deal leaves no in-suit moves, start again rather than grinding a dead table.