How to Play Black Widow Solitaire

This friendlier take on Spider uses two decks and lets you move tableau sequences even when their suits are mixed. Build ordered runs and promote them to the foundations once complete.

Setup

1. Ten tableau piles are dealt a custom pattern of face-down cards topped with one face-up card
2. The first four piles hold 5 face-down cards plus 1 face-up card (6 total); the other six piles hold 4 face-down cards plus 1 face-up card (5 total)
3. Eight foundation piles await completed runs
4. The stock holds the remaining 50 cards

How to play

• Move the top card from a tableau pile to build sequences downward by rank, regardless of suit
• Move groups of cards together if they form a valid run (each card one rank lower than the card above)—suit doesn't matter for these group moves either
• Only face-up cards are playable; face-down cards in a pile are revealed as the pile shrinks
• Empty tableau piles can receive any card or valid sequence
• Build long mixed-suit sequences in the tableau to expose hidden cards
• When a run of all 13 ranks (Ace through King) is complete, move it as a unit to a foundation pile
• Once all tableau moves are exhausted, click the stock to deal 1 card onto each tableau pile; this only works when no pile is empty, and you get just one pass through the stock with no redeal

How to win

Objective: Arrange the cards into eight complete runs from King down to Ace, mixing suits freely; you can move each completed run to a foundation pile once it's done.

You win once every card is arranged into one of eight complete runs (King down to Ace); moving completed runs to the foundations is optional and not required to win.

Tips

• Build long sequences first, even if suits don't match—mixed-suit runs help expose buried cards faster
• Create empty tableau spaces strategically to have room for complex sequences
• Focus on completing one full run at a time, moving it to the foundations to open space for other sequences

Play Black Widow free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Black Widow alongside 300+ other games. It saves every move as you play, so you can close the window and pick the game up later, replay any deal, and take on a new Daily Challenge deal every day. Browse every game in the Game Gallery.

Related games

More games from the Spider family:

• Chinese Spider — A three-suit Spider where you build long runs on the tableau and complete sequences go to the foundations.
• Spider — Ten tableau piles let you stack cards downward in rank no matter their suit, but a run only travels as a group when every card in it shares one suit.
• Spider Three Deck — This variant scales Spider up to three shuffled decks and twelve tableau piles, giving you a longer haul toward filling twelve suit-ordered foundations.
• Tarantula — A friendlier take on Spider where matching color, not matching suit, is enough to move a sequence together.
• Big Spider — This oversized Spider deals three decks across 13 tableau piles, most cards face down.