Play 1 Suit Spider Solitaire

How 1 suit Spider works

The rules are the same as regular Spider. Only the cards change.

The deal puts six cards in each of the first four columns and five in each of the other six, with the top card face up. The rest go to the stock. Build down in rank order, any 8 on any 9. Move a group of cards together if it runs down in order. Clear a column and you can put any card or run into it. When a column holds a full run from King to Ace, the game removes it. Remove all 8 and you win.

In the four-suit game, those builds only move as a group when every card matches in suit. Here they always match. The deck is made of eight copies of the spade cards, so there are eight Kings, eight Queens and so on down to eight Aces, and any of them fits anywhere its rank fits.

So the hard part of Spider, keeping suits apart, disappears. What’s left is a puzzle about space and timing: which column to clear, when to deal, and how to keep the stock from burying you.

Windows players know this version as Beginner, the level Microsoft’s Spider Solitaire used for one suit.

Strategy for 1 suit Spider

You’ll win plenty of one-suit games just by making sensible moves. These habits help you win the tough deals, and win the easy ones in fewer moves.

Start on the short columns

Columns five to ten start with five cards, one fewer than the first four. A shorter column is quicker to empty. When two moves look equal, pick the one that digs into a short column.

Make empty columns early

An empty column is worth more than any single build. With one, you can lift the top part of a long run aside, move the card under it, and put the run back. With two, you can rearrange almost anything. Try to have at least one empty column before the stock runs low.

You can’t deal while a column is empty, though. So when you’re ready to deal, put something in the gap first, ideally a run that you’d be happy to move again later.

Don’t waste a space on a lone King

A King can’t sit on any other card, so the only place it can go is an empty column. Moving a King there is sometimes right, because it frees the cards under it. But a King on its own can’t help you sort anything. Before you move one, check what you gain from the card it uncovers.

Join runs before you deal

Say one column ends in 10-9-8 and another holds 7-6-5-4. Put the 7 run on the 8 and you have one longer run and one shorter column. Do this before every deal. Long runs are easier to protect, and each join can empty a column or flip a face-down card.

Check the stock before you click

You get 5 deals in total. Each deal drops one card on every column, so it can split a run that was nearly done. Before you deal, finish every useful move, then look at which columns hold runs you’ll want to move later. A new card on top of a long run is harder to fix than one on a messy column.

Playing for score

Once you win most deals, the score becomes the real game. You start with 500 points. Each move costs 1 point, each undo costs 1, and each finished run adds 100. Dealing from the stock costs nothing.

A few ways to score higher:

• Move whole runs, not single cards. Moving a run of six counts as one move. Moving those cards one by one costs six.
• Plan before you undo. Undo is unlimited, but each one costs 1 point. Look a few moves ahead first.
• Don’t shuffle cards back and forth. Every move that doesn’t flip a card, empty a column or join a run wastes 1 point.

Your best score and best time are saved in your browser for each suit count, so you can see if you’re improving. The scoring guide explains the system in more detail.

Ready for a harder game?

One suit teaches you the core skills: making space, timing deals and joining runs. Two suits add the part that makes Spider hard. When a 7 of hearts lands on an 8 of spades, you can still build there, but that pile won’t move as one group. Try 2 suit Spider Solitaire next, then Spider with three suits and the full 4 suit game.

New to Spider? Read how to play Spider Solitaire first, or go back to the classic Spider homepage game, which has a suit switcher. For more of the same family, try Spiderette, a one-deck cousin, or browse every Spider variant.

Rules source: Pretty Good Solitaire (Goodsol)