Spider is the big one. 104 cards, ten columns, and you're trying to build eight complete runs from king down to ace. Each finished run gets taken off the board. Clear all eight and you win.
It's the longest of the common solitaires and the only one where you pick your own difficulty.
You can put any card on any card one rank higher, no matter the suit. That sounds generous. The catch is that you can only pick up and move a run if it's all the same suit.
So a descending run of mixed suits isn't progress, it's a wall. Whatever is underneath it is now stuck there, and you built the thing that's blocking it. Building in suit when you have the choice, even when it means passing up a move that looks fine, is most of the difference between winning and losing.
You can deal from the stock whenever you want, but it drops a card onto every single column at once, right on top of whatever you carefully arranged.
You also can't deal at all if any column is empty. So an empty column is something you spend before dealing, not something you save. That tension is what gives the game its shape. You're always deciding how much order to build before you accept the mess of the next deal, and you only get five of them.
One suit is a nice untangling puzzle and most games go out. Two suits is a real game where you lose sometimes and can usually tell why. Four suits is one of the hardest solitaires anyone plays regularly, and good players still lose more than half.
All three are here, and switching deals a fresh game.
Turn over face down cards, build in suit, and get a column empty if you possibly can. An empty column in Spider is worth more than in any other solitaire, because it's the only place you can take a mixed run apart.
The full guide to Spider covers the rules, the difficulty levels and what actually decides games.
Spider is a two deck solitaire that has been around since at least the early 1900s. It also shipped with Windows, which is how most people met it, and the four suit version has a reputation as one of the hardest solitaires that people still play regularly.
This version is written from scratch to run in a browser. There's no download and no account, it works on a phone as well as a desktop, and empty seats are filled by bots so a game starts the moment you want one. The full rules, scoring and strategy are on the Spider rules page.
Why can I place a card but not move it back?
Placing ignores suit. Moving a run requires the whole run to be one suit.
Why won't it let me deal?
A column is empty. Fill it and the deal is allowed.
How many deals do I get?
Five, of ten cards each.
Is four suit Spider actually winnable?
Yes, but strong players still lose more often than they win.
If something here is broken, or a rule doesn't match the way you play, email hello@turngames.io. Saying which game and what you were doing helps. Requests for new games are welcome too.