Spider Solitaire

Written by Steve Moore

Overview

Spider Solitaire is a solitaire game played with 104 cards. It has three different variations.

• Four suits – two complete 52 card decks are used.

• Two suits – four sets each of hearts and spades are used.

• One suit – eight sets of spades are used.

Rules

The game is played the same regardless of the variation. The cards are dealt into four rows of six cards, and six rows of five cards. All the cards are face down except the last card in each stack. A card can be moved from one stack to another if it is the next card in descending order with King being high and Ace being low regardless of suit. But a stack of cards can only be moved if they are in descending order and the same suit. Once moves are exhausted ten cards can be dealt one on top of each stack. Cards cannot be dealt if there is an empty stack.

The object of the game is to get all eight sets of suits ( There are eight sets regardless of the variation. ) in descending order from King to Ace. Once a suit is complete it can be sent home or moved to one of the eight empty slots at the top of the board. Once all eight suits are sent home the game is over.

Scoring

A point is scored when cards in descending order of the same suit are stacked on one another. So, the total number of points available is 96 or 12 for each suit. The score along with the number of deals remaining are indicated in the status bar at the bottom of the game window.

Game Play

Cards that are movable will be indicated when the mouse is over them with the open hand icon. Cards with the open hand icon displayed over them can be dragged and dropped to another stack or clicked to move them to another stack ( For the click case the cards are moved to a matching suit, non-matching suit, or an empty stack in that order. In some cases it might be necessary to drag and drop the cards to move them to the exact stack desired. ). When all moves are exhausted, the next set of cards can be dealt on top of the current cards by clicking on the deck in the upper left corner of the board.

Hints of possible moves are available from the menu select Control->Hint.