^ " Spider" (p.311) in Bicycle Official Rules of Card Games by Joli Quentin Kansil (ed.), 1999.^ "Spider" (p.431-432) in The Penguin Book of Card Games by David Parlett, Treasure Press, 1987.Winning chances in a normal game with good play are considered to be about 1 in 3 games. Solvability Ī detailed study has been done on the solvability of Spider solitaire games using software. This allows for a theoretical maximum score of 1254. One point is subtracted for each move (including any use of an undo) 100 points are added for each suit completed.
In the Windows versions of Spider Solitaire, the scoring is calculated with a starting score of 500.
Thus winning with all eight suits still in the tableau yields a score of 1000. If you win the game with 4 or more completed suits still in the tableau, add 2 points for each suit after the first three.
The version from Sun Microsystems from 1989 defines the following rules in the manual: 10 points for each initially face down card that gets turned over 15 additional points for each column where all the face-down cards have been turned over (even if you don't manage to get a space) 2 points for each card that is sitting atop the next higher card of the same suit 50 points for each completed suit removed from the tableau (in which case you do not also score for the 12 cards sitting atop next higher cards).
These play modes are equivalent to disregarding suit difference, either within the colors or altogether, and thus can be simulated in the physical card game, though the computer version aids visibility by representing all cards as spades and/or hearts.ĭifferent software implementations of spider offer alternative scoring rules. The newer Windows versions offer three levels of difficulty, with one, two, or four suits. Versions for Macintosh and most other operating systems are also available. A version of Spider Solitaire typically comes bundled with both the KDE and GNOME desktop environments on other Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and BSD, under the names KPatience and AisleRiot Solitaire, respectively. On Unix operating systems, an early version was developed around 1989 at Sun Microsystems. This game was also re-written for 32-bit operating systems and is referred to as Arachnid 32. The latest known version is 1.2 and is quite well polished. A similar game called Arachnid, was also written for Windows 3.x in 1991 by Ian Heath, a computer science professor at the University of Southampton in the UK. He also wrote a DOS version called EGA-Spider with version up to 93.07.05. The final version was Windows Spider Solitaire version 92.01.04. The game comes in three versions: Easy or Beginner (with 8 Spade packs), Medium or Intermediate (with four packs each of Spades and Hearts), and Hard or Advanced (with two each of all four suits).Īn earlier version was written for Windows 3.x in 1991 by John A. Spider Solitaire was introduced in the Microsoft Plus! 98 addition pack for Windows 98. The best I can ever manage is getting two or three straights out before becoming completely stuck.Common software versions of Spider are included with versions of Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, ME and XP as Spider Solitaire. I keep getting into situations where I'm only one card shy of what I'd need to sweep a straight ace to king off the board, but nothing I do to find that card works out. Every time I try at it, I keep getting into situations where I run out of single-suit stacks to build, trying to uncover more cards by stacking contrary suits doesn't work out, and then when I pull more cards out of the deck they quickly become overwhelming with cards that I can't shift or use at all. Spider with anything more than one suit continues to elude me, though. Had a bit of a starting block with FreeCell, but after getting the hang for it I find that to be a particularly enjoyable form of problem solving. In addition to enjoying the standard version, I've discovered enjoyment for Pyramid and Three Peaks. Over the past week I've been getting back into Solitaire after having found an app for it added to my computer.