Spider Solitaire Strategy GuidePosted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010 Spider solitaire is a very well-known solitaire game, which has gained a lot in popularity since Microsoft have started shipping it free with windows. It is very hard though, and many people want to know how they can increase their chances of winning. The aim of spider solitaire is to build an ascending suit sequence in the foundation zone. But this is easier said than done! Particularly when playing 4 suit spider, it can sometimes seem nearly impossible to finish the game. But there are strategies you can use to dramatically increase your chances of winning spider solitaire. But before I go into that, a quick note. In this article, I assume you have a solitaire game that allows multi-undo, 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 can still get something out of this article, but not everything they read may apply. So what is the golden secret to winning Spider Solitaire? It's simple! Empty-Columns are the key! The first objective of spider solitaire is to get a vacant column. The objective after that is to try and get another vacant column. Once you have 2 vacant columns, the game starts to become winnable, but if you can, try and form yet another empty column. Once you get to 3 or 4 empty columns, you have a very good chance of winning, unless you get an extremely unlucky run of cards. Getting The First Empty Column... From then on, play cards in this order or priority: Keep playing like this, until a column is emptied, or you run out of moves Once a column has been emptied, the focus of the game changes a little. There are now 3 main objectives, "cleanup", "re-arrange", and "expose". CLEANING UP For example, suppose you had 2 columns. The first one has: and the second one has: We can temporarily use the empty column, to rearrange the columns so that these columns become: and: We do this by moving: The main thing to note here, is that after we have finished cleaning up this sequence, the empty column is still vacant. This is critical, because we always need to keep our columns empty when possible. RE-ARRANGING EXPOSING If the new exposed card does not allow us to move it back, 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. The most important thing is to create empty columns, and try and keep them empty! Now, will these strategies help you to win every game of spider solitaire? No, they won't. Are there better strategies? Yes, and you'll probably come up with some of your own as you play the game some more. But the strategies above should prove a good foundation to help you start winning more games. Like it? Share it!More by this author |