Spiderette

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Terms
3. Setup
4. Playing
5. End of the game
6. Tips for beginners
7. Variants

Overview

Spiderette is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire): the one-deck version of Spider. You shuffle cards around seven columns until each suit lies in one long run from King down to Ace; every finished run is taken out of play. Clear all four suits and you have won. The layout is the same as in Klondike, but the play is pure Spider – and it is hard: Morehead and Mott-Smith put the chance of winning at about 1 in 20.

• Players: 1
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and room for seven columns.
• Time: about 8 minutes per game.

Terms

• Rank: the value of a card. From low to high: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K. The Ace is always low.
• Column: a pile of cards spread downwards, each card slightly overlapping the one before it, so that you can see every face-up card.
• Tableau: all seven columns together.
• Exposed card: the last card of a column – the one nearest to you, not covered by any other card.
• Build down: put a card onto a card exactly one rank higher, e.g. a 7 onto an 8.
• Suit sequence: cards at the end of a column that go down by one rank each and are all of the same suit, e.g. 9♥ 8♥ 7♥.
• Stock: the face-down pile of cards not yet dealt.

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal 28 cards into seven columns, as in Klondike: column 1 gets 1 card, column 2 gets 2 cards, and so on up to 7 cards in column 7. Only the last card of each column is face up.
2. Put the remaining 24 cards face down as the stock.

Playing

There are no turns or rounds – you make one move after another, in any order. There are no foundations to build on; all building happens in the tableau. You may:

1. Move an exposed card onto the exposed card of another column that is one rank higher. The suit does not matter: a 6♦ may go onto any 7. Nothing may be placed on an Ace.
2. Move a suit sequence as a unit onto a card one rank higher than the highest card of the sequence. 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ may go onto any 10. Cards of mixed suits cannot be moved together – only one at a time. You may also move just the lower part of a suit sequence.
3. Turn up a card: when the last face-up card of a column has been moved away, turn the face-down card beneath it face up.
4. Fill an empty column with any exposed card or suit sequence (not only a King).
5. Put aside a finished run: when a column ends with all 13 cards of one suit in order – K, Q, J, 10 … 2, A – lift the whole run off and put it aside, out of play.
6. Deal from the stock: when you are stuck, deal one card face up onto every column – seven cards, from left to right. Before you do, every empty column must be filled if you can. You deal three rows of seven; the last three cards go onto columns 1–3.

Example: Column 2 ends in 8♠ 5♥, column 5 in 6♠. Move the 5♥ onto the 6♠ (any suit is allowed) – but 6♠ 5♥ is not a suit sequence, so the two cards can only be moved one at a time. Better, if you can: wait for the 5♠, which would make 6♠ 5♠ a suit sequence.

End of the game

• Won: all four runs have been put aside.
• Lost: the stock is empty and no useful move is left.

Tips for beginners

• Build in suit whenever you can – mixed columns can only be taken apart one card at a time.
• Turning up face-down cards matters more than tidy columns: the long columns on the right hide most of the deck.
• Empty a column as early as possible and use it to rearrange mixed groups into suit sequences.
• Before dealing from the stock, sort as much as you can: the new cards cover everything.

Variants

All optional:

• Will o' the Wisp: Geoffrey Mott-Smith's easier version. Deal only 21 cards: seven columns of three, the first two face down and the last face up. The stock (31 cards) is dealt in rows of seven, the last three onto columns 1–3. Otherwise as above – about 1 in 4 games is won.
• Spider: the big two-deck game with ten columns.