Play Spider Solitaire with Four Suits Free Online

How to Play

1. Two decks (104 cards) are dealt into ten tableau columns using all four suits. Columns 1-4 receive 6 cards each; columns 5-10 receive 5 cards each. Only the top card of each column starts face-up.
2. Build descending runs in the tableau. Any rank can land on the next-higher rank regardless of suit — the suit rule only applies to group moves.
3. Only same-suit runs can be moved together as a group. Mixed-suit runs are legal in the tableau but must be moved one card at a time.
4. Tap the stock to deal one card to each tableau column. Every column must have at least one card before you can deal.
5. Empty columns accept any single card or any descending same-suit run as a group.
6. Completed King-to-Ace same-suit runs are removed from the board automatically.
7. Use Undo liberally — 4-Suit rewards exploration — and Hint when you cannot find a productive move.
8. Complete and remove all eight 13-card same-suit runs (two of each suit) to win.

Strategy

Restart the strategy book from scratch. The intuitions that work in 1-Suit and 2-Suit — consolidate every descending run, spend empty columns generously — are actively counterproductive in 4-Suit. You should be much more reluctant to make mixed-suit drops and much more protective of empty columns, because the consequences of each decision compound much faster than in the easier variants.

Plan multiple stock deals ahead. With 50 stock cards in 5 deals of 10 and a tableau that locks frequently, think of each stock deal as a planned phase rather than a reflex. Before dealing, count which suits you still need on which foundations and what the deal will likely do to your most critical columns. If a deal is almost guaranteed to lock you, look for a different sequence of moves first.

Use undo aggressively. 4-Suit deals reward exploration: try a move, examine the resulting position, undo, try a different move, compare. The interface allows unlimited undos, and there is no penalty in casual play for using them. Experienced 4-Suit players sometimes undo entire phases of the game when a better path opens up downstream.

Track suit distribution as you uncover face-down cards. The 4-Suit game is essentially an inventory problem: you have a fixed pool of cards you need to assemble into eight same-suit King-to-Ace runs, and the order in which face-down cards surface determines which paths are available. Keeping a rough mental count of how many of each suit are already played, in the foundations, or still face-down sharply improves your endgame win rate.

Tackle suit blockers before they compound. A "suit blocker" is a card of suit A sitting on top of a card of suit B that you need to move as part of a same-suit run. In 4-Suit these blockers appear constantly, and the longer you leave them in place the more other cards pile on top. When you spot a blocker early, prioritize clearing it even if the immediate move looks neutral. Clearing it now costs one empty-column slot; clearing it later may cost three.

Know when to dig face-downs and when to wait. Uncovering face-down cards is always tempting because it gives you more information and more options. But in 4-Suit, digging a face-down card often requires making a mixed-suit drop that locks the column below. The right heuristic: dig aggressively when you have two or more empty columns available as buffers; wait when you are down to one or zero empty columns and the mixed-suit drop would freeze a critical suit sequence.

Recognize the spiral anti-pattern and break out of it. The spiral happens when you cycle the same group of cards between columns repeatedly without making net progress: move A to B, then B to C, then C back to A. It feels like activity but it is not. If you notice you have made the same relative arrangement twice in the last ten moves, stop and undo back to the last branch point. The spiral is the most common way experienced players waste their remaining empty columns and deal themselves into a locked position.

Avoid dealing the stock too early. Each stock deal covers all ten columns, including any empty columns you have worked hard to create. Deal only when you have genuinely exhausted productive tableau moves. Reflexively tapping the stock whenever play slows down is one of the fastest ways to lose a winnable 4-Suit deal.

Do not treat 4-Suit like a speed game. Unlike 1-Suit, where fast play is fine, 4-Suit punishes impulsive moves. Pause before each move and ask whether it creates or destroys same-suit consolidation potential. A move that looks neutral in isolation can close off an entire suit line three deals later.

History

The 4-Suit Spider variant is the original Spider Solitaire. Older patience compendia from the 1940s describe a four-suit game without difficulty variants, and the 1-Suit and 2-Suit easy modes were added as accessibility tiers in the Windows ME (2000) and Windows XP (2001) releases, a few years after Spider first reached Windows in Microsoft Plus! 98. The 4-Suit game is the version Spider purists consider "real" Spider, and competitive Spider play (such as it exists) is almost exclusively 4-Suit. The reputation of the variant as one of the hardest mainstream solitaires comes from a combination of the suit-matching constraint and the stock-deal rule, which together create midgame positions that no other patience game reliably produces. Shipping in every Windows release from Windows ME through Windows 7 put Spider in front of a very large audience, and the 4-Suit mode in particular gathered a reputation as the "real" difficulty for players who had outgrown Klondike.

Extended Guide

The deal is identical to Spider 1-Suit and 2-Suit. Two complete decks (104 cards) are dealt across ten tableau columns: columns 1-4 receive 6 cards each, columns 5-10 receive 5 cards each. Only the top card of each column starts face-up, with 44 face-down cards waiting to be exposed. The remaining 50 cards form the stock, which deals out in batches of ten (one card per column) on each stock tap.

You build descending runs in the tableau, with the rank-only rule for tableau landings: any rank can land on the next-higher rank regardless of suit. The suit-matching rule only matters when you try to lift a group of cards as a single unit, and in 4-Suit it matters constantly because finding two consecutive same-suit cards in a row is much rarer than in 1-Suit or 2-Suit.

In 4-Suit, only same-suit runs are group-liftable. A descending run of mixed suits is a perfectly legal tableau structure, but the only way to move it is one card at a time. With four suits in play, the probability that any given descending run is same-suit is far lower than in 2-Suit, and the consequence is that mixed-suit runs accumulate naturally and become structural obstacles you have to work around.

The stock mechanic is unchanged. You can only tap the stock when every tableau column has at least one card. Completed King-to-Ace same-suit runs auto-clear from the board. Empty columns accept any card or any descending same-suit run. You need to complete eight 13-card same-suit runs to win, which in 4-Suit means two of each suit (two hearts, two diamonds, two clubs, two spades).

The difficulty of 4-Suit comes from the interaction of two constraints. First, the suit-matching rule makes group lifts rare, so the tableau accumulates more "frozen" mixed-suit runs as the game progresses. Second, the stock-deal rule requires every column to be non-empty, so the standard 1-Suit and 2-Suit tactic of creating multiple empty columns as universal staging areas is much harder to execute. The midgame frequently locks into positions where no progress is possible without dealing the stock, but dealing the stock covers your already-difficult empty columns.

A long-running community solver project has worked through roughly 131,000 four-suit deals from the PySolFC and WinSpidr numbering schemes and left only three unsolved, which supports deal winnability above 99.99% for the studied rules — though that is not a human win rate. Solvable Mode selects a pre-validated seed for which the offline solver found a winning line. It does not reveal that line or simplify the rules. Random games remain unfiltered, while daily challenges use a shared pre-validated seed. Approach 4-Suit as a puzzle rather than a quick-play game.

Glossary

Suit blocker

A card of one suit sitting on top of a card of a different suit you need to reposition. In 4-Suit they accumulate quickly and must be cleared early.

Spiral anti-pattern

Repeatedly cycling cards between the same columns without net progress. The fastest way to exhaust empty columns in 4-Suit.

4-Suit difficulty

The original and hardest Spider variant where all four suits are in play. Same-suit partners are only 25 percent of the remaining deck, making group lifts rare.

Frozen run

A mixed-suit tableau sequence that cannot be lifted as a group and requires empty columns to disassemble one card at a time.

All-four-suits constraint

The defining challenge of 4-Suit Spider: with four suits in play, finding same-suit partners for group moves is significantly rarer than in 1-Suit or 2-Suit.

Same-suit partner

A card of the same suit as a target card, needed to form liftable same-suit runs. In 4-Suit, only one quarter of the remaining deck shares any given suit.

Beginner Tips

• Treat every mixed-suit drop in 4-Suit as a permanent commitment. Ask whether you will ever need to move the card underneath before placing anything on top of it.
• Spot suit blockers early. A blocker at depth two is manageable. The same blocker at depth six, after more cards pile on, may be unwinnable.
• If you notice the same cards cycling between the same columns, you are spiraling. Stop and undo to the last genuine progress point before exhausting your empty columns.
• Avoid dealing the stock too early. Each deal covers all ten columns including hard-won empty columns. Deal only when you have genuinely exhausted all productive tableau moves.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Games

• Spider Solitaire 1-Suit
• Spider Solitaire 2-Suit
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Guides

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