How to Play Spider Solitaire: Rules & Set-Up [9 Steps + Video]

Step 1: Layout ten cards face down next to each other, starting from left to right. You now have ten rows on the board, also known as tableaus. Next, place another ten cards, face down on top of the ten cards you've just put down. Keep doing this until you have four cards in each tableau. Next, you should place a card facing down on each of the first four tableaus, and on the following six tableaus, put a card facing up. All there's left to do now is to place a card facing up on the initial four cards.

Step 2: After laying out all the cards, you should have a pile of cards leftover. This pile is called the stock and will be used throughout the game. Place the card above the first tableau. You should also leave room for eight additional piles, which we call the foundation.

Step 1: To win, you need to have all your cards end up on the foundation. Once all your cards are on the foundation piles, you've won the game! The rules are pretty straightforward. You can move any card facing up to any other card on the tableau, as long as the card being moved is one lower than the card it's being moved to. You can also move a sequence of cards, as long as they're in descending order, of the same suit and the bottom card is one lower than the card it's being moved to. If a face-down card becomes the top card when a move is made, you should turn it face up once the move is made.

When playing, the general strategy is to build up as many sequences as possible on the tableau.

Step 2: Once no more available moves are left, it's time to turn your attention to the stock. Grab the top ten cards from the stock and put down a face-up card on each tableau.

Step 3: Your tableaus will now have a random card from the stock as its top card. After this is done, you should check if there are any new moves you can make. If none are present, you can repeat the procedure and grab another ten cards from the stock.

Step 4: If a tableau is empty, you can move any card or sequence of cards to the empty spot.

Step 5: The game's goal is to create sequences of descending cards, starting from the king and ending with the ace. These sequences should be of the same suit to be eligible to move to the foundation.

Step 6: Once you have a complete sequence of cards, you can pat yourself on the back and move it to one of the foundations.

Step 7: Once you've used all the cards in your stock and moved all cards to the foundations, then you've won!