Play Beetle Solitaire
Spider with nothing hidden on the table. Deal a free game of Beetle Solitaire below.
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Beetle Solitaire is two-deck Spider with every card in the opening deal face up. You build down in any suit across ten columns, move only same-suit runs, and deal more cards from a stock when you need them. The goal is to sort every card into King-to-Ace runs, each in one suit.
How the Beetle deal is laid out
Beetle uses 104 cards from two decks. The first four of the 10 columns get five cards each, and the other six get four. Every card on the table is face up. The remaining 60 cards form the stock.
Beetle Solitaire rules
These rules follow Pretty Good Solitaire’s Beetle page.
- Build down by rank in any suit. A 7 of spades goes on an 8 of any suit.
- Move a single card, or a run that goes down in sequence in one suit. A mixed-suit run can’t move as a group.
- Fill an empty column with any card or legal run.
- Deal from the stock to put one card on each column. You can deal even when a column is empty.
- A full King-to-Ace run in one suit is removed from the table, as Wikipedia’s Beetle article describes.
- Win by grouping all the cards into King-to-Ace runs, each in a single suit.
How Beetle differs from Spider
Pretty Good Solitaire describes Beetle as Spider with all the cards face up. The building and moving rules match 4-suit Spider Solitaire. Two things change:
- Nothing is hidden on the table. In Spider, every column starts with face-down cards under one face-up card. In Beetle you see all of them.
- A smaller opening deal. Beetle puts fewer cards on the table than Spider, so more sit in the stock.
The stock is the only unknown. Each deal still brings a row of cards you couldn’t plan for.
Beetle strategy
Plan the whole opening. With the table open, you can map out moves before you make the first one. Look for long same-suit runs you can build from cards already showing, and the moves that empty a column.
Mind the mixed runs. Pretty Good Solitaire notes that groups not in one suit can’t move. In Beetle you can see exactly where suits break inside each column. A run like 9 of clubs, 8 of hearts, 7 of hearts is two pieces, not one. Avoid building more of those than you have empty columns to sort them out.
Build columns that welcome the next deal. The stock will drop a card on every column. A column ending in a low card, like a 2, gets buried by almost anything. A column ending in a high card has a better chance of taking the dealt card as part of a run.
Use the short columns. The six four-card columns are your quickest route to an empty column.
The board above is free in your browser, with unlimited undo, hints and numbered deals you can share. For a one-deck game with every card face up and no stock at all, try Simple Simon. For a two-deck game with no stock, try Mrs Mop Solitaire.
Rules source: Pretty Good Solitaire (Goodsol)
Frequently asked questions
What is Beetle Solitaire?
Beetle is a two-deck solitaire game in the Spider family. It plays like Spider, with ten columns, any-suit building and same-suit runs that move as a group. The difference is that every card in the opening deal is face up. Pretty Good Solitaire describes it as a variation of Spider where all the cards are face up.
How is Beetle different from Spider Solitaire?
In Spider, each column starts with face-down cards under one face-up card. In Beetle, every card on the table is face up from the start. Beetle also deals fewer cards to the table, five in each of the first four columns and four in the rest, so the stock holds more cards.
Can you move mixed-suit runs in Beetle?
No. Pretty Good Solitaire’s rules say groups of cards not of the same suit cannot be moved. You can build a 6 of hearts on a 7 of clubs, but those two cards then have to move one at a time. Only a run that goes down in sequence in a single suit moves as one group.
Is Beetle Solitaire easier than Spider?
Seeing every card on the table makes planning easier, since no face-down card can surprise you. The building and moving rules are the same as Spider, though, and the stock still adds cards you can’t see in advance. How hard a deal plays depends a lot on how many mixed-suit runs you end up building.