The hardest solitaire games in the Spider family

Want to test yourself first? Deal a four-suit game and see how far you get.

How this ranking works

This page covers the Spider family only: the Spider-style games on this site, which share the idea of building long runs inside the columns. “Solitaire” covers a great many games, and nobody has a single agreed list of the hardest.

The order below rests on two things.

1. Goodsol’s estimates: each Goodsol help page tags its game Easy, Medium or Hard and adds an estimate of how often an expert wins with undo. We sort those estimates into five tiers: Easy, Moderate, Hard, Very hard and Expert. They describe Goodsol’s own versions of the games, which can differ in small ways from the versions here.
2. The rules, where Goodsol is silent: Goodsol has no page for Relaxed Spider, Wasp or the 3-suit Spider played here. We place each by its rules, next to the game it changes. Where a game has no Goodsol label, the page says so.

There are no win percentages on this page. Odds depend on the exact rules and on how well you play, so a single number would mislead more than it helps.

What makes a solitaire game hard

Six rule differences do most of the work.

Face-down cards: Every hidden card is something you can’t plan around. Spider starts with most of its cards hidden. Simple Simon deals every card face up, so you can see the whole problem from move one.

One deck instead of two: With two decks, each card has a twin. If one 8 of hearts is buried, the other might be free. One-deck games have no spare, so a single buried card can block a whole suit.

Fewer columns: Fewer columns means fewer places to put a card, and fewer chances to empty a column.

King-only spaces: In Scorpion, only a King (or a group headed by a King) can go into an empty column. In Spider, an empty column takes any card. That one rule change makes empty columns much less useful.

Suits: In Spider you can stack any card on one rank higher, but only a run in one suit moves as a unit. More suits means more mixed stacks that are stuck where they are.

The stock: Spider’s stock drops a card on every column, which buries whatever was on top. Standard Spider also won’t let you deal while a column is empty.

The Spider family, ranked by difficulty

Expert: Spiderette, Will o’ the Wisp and 4-suit Spider

Spiderette is Spider shrunk down to one deck. You get 7 columns dealt like Klondike, 1 card in the first and 7 in the last, with most cards face down. You build down regardless of suit and move only same-suit runs, the same as Spider. Empty columns must be filled before a deal.

Each card is a single, with no twin to fall back on, and fewer columns leave less room. Goodsol labels it Hard and calls it “Skill/luck balanced”. Solitaire Laboratory goes further and calls it “an extremely difficult game”.

Will o’ the Wisp uses the same rules with a different deal: 7 columns of three cards, two face down and one face up. Goodsol also labels it Hard. Solitaire Laboratory calls it “a much more reasonable game” than Spiderette, so of the two, Spiderette sits at the very top of this list.

Four-suit Spider is the game most people mean by Spider Solitaire. It uses 2 decks dealt into 10 columns, and only the top card of each column starts face up. Goodsol’s word for it is Medium, the same as two suits, but its estimate for four suits is close to Spiderette’s. Four suits create far more stacks that can’t move as a group. Microsoft called this level Advanced.

Very hard: Scorpion, 3-suit Spider and Relaxed Spider

Scorpion plays very differently. You can see most of the cards, since only the bottom 3 cards of the first four columns start face down. But you build in suit only, and only a King can fill an empty column. Goodsol labels it Medium, and its own tips call Scorpion “very much a game of skill, and it is difficult”. Read the full Scorpion rules before your first game, because moves work in an odd way: you can lift any face-up card along with everything on top of it.

Three-suit Spider has no Goodsol label for the version on this site. It uses the same 104 cards as other Spider games, split into three suits. Fewer suits make Spider easier, so we place three suits one tier below four and one tier above two.

Relaxed Spider drops one of Spider’s most annoying rules. Wikipedia describes it as a version that “does not require all spaces to be filled before redealing”. You can deal from the stock with a column empty, which saves you from shuffling a card into a space just so you can deal. Goodsol has no page for it, so we place it one tier below four-suit Spider: the same four suits, with one fewer way to get stuck.

Hard: 2-suit Spider and four relatives

Two-suit Spider uses spades and hearts. Goodsol labels it Medium. Solitaire Laboratory calls it “considerably easier than standard Spider”, and it’s the usual step up once one suit feels easy. Microsoft called it Intermediate.

Grounds for Divorce changes the stock. In Goodsol’s version the stock deals only to columns that aren’t empty, so an empty column doesn’t stop you dealing. Goodsol labels it Medium.

Mrs Mop uses two decks with every card face up and no stock at all, so the whole game is decided by the 13 columns you start with. Seeing every card doesn’t make it easy: Goodsol labels it Medium. Solitaire Laboratory calls it a “completely open game”.

Easy Scorpion is Scorpion with face-down cards in only the first three columns. Goodsol calls this deal Scorpion II and labels it Medium, with a much better estimate than Scorpion’s.

Wasp is almost the same as Scorpion, with one change: any card or sequence can go into an empty column. According to Wikipedia, that gives the player more chances of winning. Goodsol doesn’t label it, so we place it level with Easy Scorpion, one tier below Scorpion.

Moderate: Tarantula, Beetle and Simple Simon

Tarantula is a two-deck Spider game where runs of one colour move together, so more of your stacks can move. Goodsol labels it Medium.

Beetle uses two decks with every card on the table face up. Only the stock is hidden. Goodsol labels it Medium.

Simple Simon deals one deck face up into 10 columns, with no stock. You can see every card from the start. Goodsol labels it Easy.

Easy: 1-suit Spider, Black Widow, Big Spider and Double Scorpion

One-suit Spider uses all spades. Every run you build is in suit, so any descending run can move as one group. Goodsol labels it Easy and Solitaire Laboratory calls it “even easier” than two suits. Microsoft called it Beginner. If you’re new to Spider, start here.

Black Widow gets an Easy label from Goodsol. In Goodsol’s version, runs move as a unit regardless of suit, which removes the main problem in four-suit Spider.

Big Spider takes Spider up to 3 decks and 13 columns. Goodsol’s word for it is Medium, but its estimate puts it with the easiest games here. Three copies of every card and the extra columns give you room. Games also take much longer.

Double Scorpion is a two-deck version of Scorpion. With every card doubled, a buried card is less of a disaster. Goodsol labels it Easy.

What about Klondike?

In the US and Canada, “Solitaire” with no other name usually means Klondike, the game Windows helped make popular. It uses one deck in seven columns, with four foundations built up from Ace. This site doesn’t offer Klondike, so it isn’t ranked here. If you want to know how it differs from Spider, read the Spider and Klondike comparison.