Forty Thieves vs Spider Solitaire: Which Is Harder?

Forty Thieves vs Spider solitaire: same-suit builds one card at a time vs sequence-clearing with redeals. Both 2-deck, both 8-10% wins — completely different feel.

Both Forty Thieves and Spider are beloved solitaire classics, but they offer very different experiences. Use the table below to compare key stats, then read our detailed game pages to learn rules and strategy.

Forty Thieves
Difficulty
5/5
Decks
2
Play Time
~25 min
Win Rate
10% · Brutal
Family
forty-thieves
Players
1
Spider
Difficulty
4/5
Decks
2
Play Time
~20 min
Win Rate
8% · Brutal
Family
spider
Players
1

Which Should You Play?

  • Pick Forty Thieves if you want a serious two-deck challenge — only 10% of deals are winnable.
  • Pick Spider if you want a serious two-deck challenge — only 8% of deals are winnable.

Game Details

Forty Thieves

Expert

Forty Thieves is a two-deck solitaire game with only a 10% win rate, dealing 40 cards face-up into ten tableau columns. Players build eight foundation piles from Ace to King by suit, moving one card at a time in same-suit descending sequences. It is among the most difficult classic solitaire variants.

2 decks~25 min10% win rate

Spider

Hard

Spider is a challenging solitaire card game with an 8% win rate in four-suit mode, played with two decks totaling 104 cards. Cards are dealt into ten tableau columns. The goal is to build complete descending sequences from King to Ace within a single suit. Completed sequences are removed until all cards are cleared.

2 decks~20 min8% win rate