Spider Solitaire, free
Spider Solitaire is a solitaire card game in which you play 2 decks of 104 cards against a set of 10 columns, moving cards in descending runs of one suit until every column is emptied. You can play it online free in the browser on this page, and the board loads in under 3 seconds with no download, no account and no ad wall: 8 columns start with 6 cards each, the 4 that follow start with 5, and the stock deals 50 cards in 5 deals of 10.
This page belongs to a small catalogue of browser games, where every title is a single loadable page: Solitaire, played free in your browser, as here, or a card game such as FreeCell, no download, or an arcade cabinet, and the full shelf is gathered at Play Free Browser Games.
How to play Spider Solitaire online for free
To play Spider Solitaire online for free, you only have to clear the board: the browser loads the board, the mouse does the rest, and the first 8 columns hold 54 of the 104 cards while the remaining 50 sit in the stock. No installer, no signup and no save file are involved, so the board is ready the moment the page finishes loading, and it stays ready between visits.
- Click the top card of any column to lift it, then click a target column to drop it on a card one rank higher, in any suit.
- Move a whole run only when the run is in descending order and all one suit: a 9 to 5 of hearts travels together, a 9 of hearts on a 8 of spades does not.
- Expose a face-down card the moment the card above it moves; the new card flips over automatically.
- Drag a completed K to A suit to the finished row, where it stays locked for the rest of the deal.
- Deal a new row of 10 cards from the stock, which the browser blocks while any column is empty.
- Click an empty column and place a king, or a king-led suit run, to refill it.
The free play is the same free play on every device: the page is the game, the board is the state, and a reload simply deals a fresh board. No download of any kind stands between you and the first deal, which is exactly the arrangement this whole catalogue runs on.
What the 10 columns and the stock do
The 10 columns are the entire battlefield of the game, and the stock is the only reserve. The layout deals 54 cards at once: 6 cards in each of the first 8 columns and 5 in the final 2, with the last card of every column face up, and the stock keeps the other 50 as 5 deals of 10.
| Part | Count | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Columns | 10 | Holding area: 8 columns of 6 cards, 2 columns of 5 cards, 54 cards face-down or up |
| Stock | 50 | Reserve, dealt as 5 rows of 10, one row per deal, only while all 10 columns hold at least 1 card |
| Finished row | up to 8 | Locked home for a completed K to A run of a single suit |
Two rules decide most of the play. First, the empty-column rule: a column may hold a king or a king-led suit run, and nothing else, so a bare column is a scarce asset you spend deliberately. Second, the stock rule: the browser refuses a deal while any column is empty, because a card dealt onto an empty column is unplayable until that column is filled. The finished row is the scoreboard of the game: 8 completed suits, 8 times 13 cards, 104 cards, and the board is won.
1 suit, 2 suits or 4 suits
The difficulty of Spider Solitaire is set by how many suits the 2 decks use, and the browser board on this page deals the 1 suit layout, the layout that keeps a free session winnable. The card counts never change: 104 cards, 10 columns, 50 in the stock, 8 completed suits to win. Only the odds shift.
| Level | Deck | What it means in play |
|---|---|---|
| 1 suit | 2 decks, hearts only | Every card can travel in every run; the standard free-play board |
| 2 suits | 2 decks, hearts and diamonds | Half the cards match your current run; the intermediate step | 4 suits | 2 standard decks | Only 1 of 4 cards matches at any moment; the traditional, hardest layout |
The 1 suit board is where most online sessions begin, because a run can grow long before the first mismatch appears, and the finished row fills steadily. If you clear it in a handful of deals, the 2 suits layout is the honest test, and the 4 suits layout is the one the old PC versions shipped with. The board here plays the free, one-suit deal, and the two deck, ten column, fifty card stock geometry is identical at every level, so the skill you build on 1 suit transfers straight up.
The run rule that decides every deal
The run rule is the only rule that matters: a stack moves only when it is in descending order and all one suit, and everything else in the game exists to build such stacks. A 7 of hearts on a 8 of hearts is a 2-card run you can drag in one move; a 7 of hearts on a 8 of spades is a legal placement that still moves only by itself. Building mixed-suit stacks is how beginners burn through the stock: the board looks tidy, but nothing inside it can travel, and every deal of 10 adds new cards on top of the dead weight.
The fix is to keep 1 clean run per column at all times, even if it means leaving 3 or 4 face-down cards covered for a while. A column with 1 movable run beats a column with 5 movable single cards, because the run is a tool and the singles are a pile. When a K to A run of one suit sits finished, the browser locks it in the finished row and the whole problem shrinks: 13 fewer cards in play, and a new run of that suit has nothing left to finish against.
FreeCell and Spider: what differs
FreeCell and Spider Solitaire share the free, in-browser, no download habit and the card-count seriousness, and they differ in almost everything that shapes a deal. The comparison is worth 1 minute, because it explains why a Spider session feels like a construction project while a FreeCell session feels like a search.
| Attribute | Spider Solitaire | FreeCell |
|---|---|---|
| Deck | 2 decks, 104 cards, 1 to 4 suits | 1 deck, 52 cards, 4 suits |
| Board | 10 tableau columns | 8 tableau columns |
| Reserve | 50-card stock, dealt in 5 rows | 4 free cells, any 1 card each, plus a trash row |
| Moves | Descending, any suit; runs move only in one suit | Descending, alternating colors; single cards move freely |
| Goal | 8 completed K to A suit runs | 4 foundation piles from A to K |
Both games are free in the browser and both are catalogued here with no download, but Spider rewards patience in building runs and FreeCell rewards speed in shuffling single cards through 4 cells. If you enjoy the slow, structural feel of Spider, FreeCell is the other card game on this shelf worth an hour; if you want the same geometry without the suit hunting, the 1 suit Spider board on this page is the closest cousin.
Where this board sits in the catalogue
This Spider board is one title in a catalogue of free casual browser games, and its job is to be one complete, loadable game per page. The solitaire shelf holds this board alongside Klondike and FreeCell, each a standalone page that loads, deals and finishes inside the browser, and the wider shelves add puzzle, action, arcade and two-player games with the same promise: the page is the game, the board is the state, and the browser is the only machine you need.
Nothing to install, nothing to register, nothing to update. The 10 columns, the 50-card stock and the 8 finished rows are waiting, and the first deal costs 0 of your time to set up. Start with the 1 suit board, clear a few runs, and the rest of the catalogue is a click away.