Storia
Spider is a patience for two packs of cards. The earliest printed description that patience researchers have found is an unsigned magazine article of November 1937.
Early descriptions dealt the game differently from today. Albert Ostrow's The Complete Card Player (1945) begins with 50 cards in five rows, four face down and one face up, and ends with a short deal of four cards. By 1949 Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith were describing the layout that is still used: 54 cards in ten columns, then five deals of ten from the stock.
The game was first played with two full packs, four suits in all. Versions with one or two suits, in which the 104 cards repeat spades, or spades and hearts, came later as easier ways to play. They change nothing in the rules except how often a run can be built in suit.
Nel mondo
- Spider
- Spider Patience
- One-suit Spider
- Two-suit Spider
- Spiderette
Strategia
Spider rewards patience in the ordinary sense too: most games are won by many small, careful steps rather than one clever move.
Uncover Cards First
Every face-down card is information you lack and a card you can't use. Prefer moves that turn up a card to moves that only rearrange the face-up ones.
Build in Suit When You Can
Any 6 can go on any 7, but only a 6 on a 7 of the same suit makes a run that can move as a whole. When two cards fit, choose the one of the same suit, even if the other move looks just as good.
Value Empty Columns
An empty column is your workspace. With it you can take a mixed run apart, park cards, and rebuild them in suit. Try to empty one early, and don't fill it with a single card you could have left where it was.
Be Careful with Kings
A King can only move into an empty column, and no card can ever go under it. Put a King in an empty column when it will start a run there, not just to clear another column.
Prepare Each Deal
A deal covers all ten columns at once. Before you deal, make every useful move and, where you can, end columns on cards that won't matter much when covered. You must fill every empty column first, so plan which card goes there.
Short Columns First
Columns with few face-down cards are the quickest to empty. Work on them before the deep ones.
With Four Suits
Runs of one suit are rare, so mixed builds are often unavoidable. Keep them short, and keep an empty column whenever you can: it is the only way to sort a mixed run back into suits. Undo is there to try a line and take it back.
Varianti
Spider is played in several forms. The first three are offered in the setup here.
One Suit
All 104 cards are spades, so every build is in suit and every run moves as a whole. Most deals can be won, which makes it the best way to learn the game. It is the standard game here.
Two Suits
52 spades and 52 hearts. Mixed builds happen, so you must start thinking about which card to put where. A fair challenge between the other two.
Four Suits
Two ordinary packs, the game as first described. Runs of one suit are hard to build, and a good share of deals are lost even with careful play.
Spiderette
A one-pack relative dealt in seven columns, as in Klondike, with four runs to build. It is quicker but tighter, because there is less room to work in.
Optional Removal
In the printed rules you may leave a finished run on the table if you want to use its cards. Here a finished run always leaves the table.
Domande frequenti
Start with one suit, the standard game here: every run is in suit, so you can learn how runs, empty columns and deals work. Move to two suits when one-suit games feel easy, and to four suits for the full challenge.