Spider Solitaire

Spider Solitaire is one of the classic solitaire card games.

• "The devotees of Spider, who are legion, claim is at the king of all solitaires. Certainly few others can give you quite the same combination of luck of the deal plus extraordinary opportunities to overcome bad luck by skillful manipulations." (Alphonse Moyse, 150 Ways to play Solitaire, Whitman Publishing Company, MCML, p. 92)
• "This one is said to have been popular with Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was president of the USA, and some call it the king of patience games." (Trevor Day and The Diagram Group, Collins Gem Patience Card Games, HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, ISBN 0004720164, p. 235)
• "The game is said to have been a particular favourite of Franklin D. Roosevelt." (David Parlett, The Penguin Book of Patience, Allen Lane, London, 1979, ISBN 071391193X, p. 286)
• "According to Redbook Magazine it was the favourite patience of Franklin D. Roosevelt." (The Complete Book of Card Games, Hanlyn, London, 2001, ISBN 0600604136, p. 242)
• "The game is usually known as Spider, a name which I have rejected because a number of variations are known by the same name; in fact, Spider is not so much the name of any one game but the generic name for any game of patience in which the foundation-cards are not played to the centre, but in which sequences are built within the lay-out itself. I have suggested the alternative name of Roosevelt's Favourite because it is mentioned in the Redbook Magazine as being the favourite patience game of Franklin D. Roosevelt." (George F. Hervey, The illustrated Book of Card Games for One, ISBN 0890091137, p. 129)

Solitaire Card Games

Solitaire games, also known as Patience in Britain, are card games for a single player. Does not exist a precise history of solitaires, but it is probable that solitaires are been born with the card games. 

The word solitaire is of french origin, and it means patience. It must but wait for the age of Napoleon (is said Napoleon to have played a lot of solitaire) to see a true development of the solitaire games. 

The first book on the argument comes printed in 1870. It was Illustrated Games of Patience by lady Adelaide Cadogan, containing 25 games, reprinted many times. In the U.S. mrs E.D. Cheney published the successive year the book Patience. 

The publishing house Dick & Fitzgerald in New York published in 1883 a series of books dedicated to solitaire games ("Dick's Games of Patience") and a second series was published in 1898. 

In the 1890's a great populariser of the game was Miss Whitemore Jones, whose 5 volumes on solitaires went reprint for thirty years.

• Solitaires "have a marvellous capacity both to soothe and challenge the mind of the player" (Trevor Day and The Diagram Group, Collins Gem Patience Card Games, HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, ISBN 0004720164, p. 3)
  
• "Patience is the mental equivalent of jogging: its purpose is to tone the brain up and get rid of unsociable mental flabbiness." (David Parlett, The Penguin Book of Patience, Penguin Books, 1980, ISBN 0140463461, p. 11)
  
• "It has many virtues, not the last being that it teaches one the self discipline of being honest with oneself." (George F. Hervey, The illustrated Book of Card Games for One, ISBN 0890091137, p. 7)

Rules for Spider Solitaire

From: SolSuite Solitaire

Spider type; 2 decks; no redeal

• Game time: Medium
• Difficulty level: Easy
• Skill level: Difficult
• Chance of winning: Low (about 1 in 10)

Object of the game

• To create in the tableau 8 suites of 13 cards in descending suit sequence from King to Ace.

Foundations

• The foundations are not built directly.
• The 10 piles are tableau and foundations, and all building is on the tableau.
• When a playable sequence (an entire suite of 13 cards) becomes exposed it is automatically moved to a foundation.
• The game is won if all 8 sequences are discarded (when you discard the whole deck in 8 sequences and nothing is on the tableau).

Tableau (10 columns)

• Build down regardless of suit (for example, a 5 can be played on a 6 ).
• The top card of each pile is available for play on another tableau pile.
• Cards of the same suit and in descending sequence may be moved as a unit to another pile (groups of cards not of the same suit cannot be moved).
• Nothing can be placed on an Ace (a King cannot move, except to a blank space).
• Spaces may be filled with any available card or packed sequence.

Stock

• Click once on the stock to deal a new row of cards to the tableau.
• There is no redeal.

Similar Games for Spider Solitaire

The following games are similar to Spider Solitaire. They are all included in SolSuite Solitaire. Clicking a link will open the solitaire rules at SolSuite.com website.

Ant (*) Coleopter (*) King Edward Mantis (*) Mrs Mop Rouge et Noir Scarab Scorpion Scorpion Four Decks (*) Scorpion Three Decks (*)

Scorpion Two Decks (*) Simple Simon Spider Build and Play (*) Spider Four Decks (*) Spider One Suit Spider Reversed (*) Spider Three Decks (*) Spider Two Suits Spiderette Will o' the Wisp

(*) Original SolSuite Solitaire invented by the authors of SolSuite and therefore exclusive SolSuite solitaire. It is neither available in other solitaire collections nor is it included in any book of solitaire games.