Spider Solitaire with One Suit
Spider Solitaire 1 Suit, also called one-suit Spider, deals all 104 cards from a single suit: eight copies of every Spade from Ace to King. It is the easiest of the three levels, and the game above starts on it. When it stops being a challenge, move up to Spider with 2 suits or the full 4-suit game.
The layout and the rules are the same at every level. Only the mix of suits changes, and at one suit that change switches off the rule that makes Spider hard.
What Makes One Suit the Easy Level
In Spider, only a run in one suit moves as a unit. With nothing but Spades in the deck, every descending pile you build is a run in one suit, so every pile can move. A 10, 9, 8, and 7 stacked in the first minute can still travel together at the end.
Every card also has eight copies. When a 6 turns up it fits on any open 7, and the deck holds eight 7s, so a card rarely waits long for a home.
A King can only leave its column for an empty one, and nothing can ever go on an Ace. When a one-suit game stalls, look for a King with no space to go to, an Ace on top of a column, or a deal that landed before the table was ready.
How a One-Suit Game Is Dealt
The deal is the standard one: 54 cards across ten columns, six in each of the first four and five in the rest, with only the top card of each column face up. The remaining 50 wait in the stock and come out ten at a time, five times. Every one of the eight runs you build is Spades, King down to Ace.
Before each deal, every column needs at least one card, so fill any gap with a card or a run first. A finished run leaves the table by itself.
One-Suit Strategy
Move the copy from the shorter column. When a 5 could go onto the only open 6 from two different columns, take it from the column with fewer face-down cards, because that column is closer to empty. The other 5 will find another 6.
Build first, then move once. A whole pile moves in a single move, and every move costs a point. Stack cards into a pile and carry it across in one go rather than feeding cards over one at a time.
Skip moves that gain nothing. Shifting a pile from one 10 to another 10 flips nothing and empties nothing. At one suit an empty column is rarely needed as a waiting room, because there is no mixed pile to sort.
Finish runs quickly. Completing a run earns 100 points, clears 13 cards, and often flips a card or empties a column in the same move. Late in a strong game a finished run can leave fewer than ten cards on the table. That is safe: with too few cards to fill every column, you may deal with columns still empty.
Deal when the table is ready, not when you are stuck. Before each deal, make every flip and join on offer, then fill each empty column with a card whose move turns up a hidden card. The deal will drop a new card on all ten piles.
Scoring at One Suit
The score starts at 500, drops 1 for every move, deals included, and rises 100 for each finished run. A one-suit win therefore scores 1,300 minus your moves: win in 200 moves and you score 1,100. Because any pile moves in a single move, one suit is the level for chasing a high score. The full scoring rules are the same at every level.
Spider Solitaire 1 Suit FAQ
How to play 1 suit Spider Solitaire?
Deal 54 Spades into ten columns and keep 50 in the stock. Build down by rank, move any descending pile as a unit, and fill empty columns with any card. Deal ten more when you need them, but only once every column holds a card or fewer than ten cards remain on the table. Complete eight King-to-Ace runs to win.
Is 4 suit Spider Solitaire harder than 1 suit?
Yes, by a wide margin. At one suit every descending pile moves as a unit. At four suits a card matches a given card's suit only one time in four, so most piles are mixed and stay stuck until you take them apart. Windows Vista and 7 labeled one suit Beginner and four suits Advanced.
What is Spider Solitaire single suit?
It is Spider played with 104 cards of one suit, usually Spades as in our game: eight copies of each card. The deal and rules match the two-suit and four-suit games, but every descending pile is already in one suit, so any pile can move. That makes it the easiest Spider level.
Try Another Level
The same deal and rules, with more suits in the deck. Read the complete Spider rules or pick a harder game.