Beetle Solitaire

How to Play Beetle Solitaire

What Is Beetle Solitaire?

Beetle Solitaire is a close cousin of Spider Solitaire with one big, friendly difference: every card is dealt face up. In regular Spider, most of the tableau starts face down and you spend the whole game guessing what is hidden underneath. In Beetle, nothing is hidden at all. You can see all 104 cards from the very first move, which turns the game from a guessing contest into a pure planning puzzle. If you have ever felt that Spider punished you for things you could not see, Beetle is the version that plays fair.

The Layout

Beetle Solitaire is played with two standard decks shuffled together, 104 cards in total. The table has two areas:

• The tableau. Ten columns of cards spread across the middle of the screen. The first 4 columns are dealt 6 cards each, and the remaining 6 columns are dealt 5 cards each, for a total of 54 cards. Every single one of them is face up. This full view of the board is what makes Beetle different from Spider.
• The stock. The other 50 cards wait in a face-down pile, usually shown in a corner of the table. You will deal from this pile in five rounds of ten cards each as the game goes on.

There are also foundation spaces where finished suit runs are collected, but you never place cards there by hand. The game moves completed runs off the table for you automatically.

How to Move Cards

In the tableau you build down by rank, and suit does not matter for placement. A 7 can go on any 8, whether that 8 is a heart, a club, a diamond, or a spade. So if the bottom card of one column is a 10, you may move any 9 onto it, then any 8 onto that 9, and so on.

Moving a single card is always simple: the fully exposed card at the bottom of any column can be picked up and placed on a card one rank higher, or on an empty column. Moving a group is where the one important rule lives: a group of cards may move together only if it forms an unbroken descending run. The suits inside the run may be mixed for the purpose of moving. For example, a run of 9-8-7 with the 9 of spades, 8 of hearts and 7 of clubs can be dragged as one unit onto any 10. But a stack that goes 9, then Jack, then 4 is not a run, so only its bottom card can move.

Here is a small example chain. Suppose one column ends in a Jack. You can build 10, 9, 8 onto it, one card or one run at a time, creating J-10-9-8. Later you might slide that whole 10-9-8 section onto a different Jack, or move the entire run onto a Queen. Long tidy runs like this are the building blocks of the game.

Empty columns are precious. When a column has no cards left, you may place any single card or any legal run there, from a lone 2 up to a full King-high run. An empty column is the best sorting space you will ever get, so spend it wisely.

The Stock

When you run out of useful moves, click the stock pile. It deals one face-up card onto every column, ten new cards in all. There is a catch: you may not deal while any column is empty. Every one of the ten columns must hold at least one card before the stock will deal. This rule matters, because each deal drops random cards on top of your carefully built runs. Tidying the table before you click the stock is one of the keys to winning.

Completing Runs and Winning

Although mixed-suit runs are fine for moving cards around, a run only counts as finished when it is all one suit. The moment the top thirteen cards of a column form a complete run from King down to Ace in a single suit, that run is automatically swept off the table to the foundations. You do not need to do anything; the game spots it and removes it for you.

Two decks contain eight full suits, so there are eight runs to build: two in each suit. You win when all eight one-suit runs, King through Ace, have been removed from the table.

Playing on This Site

You can drag and drop any card or legal run, or simply double-click (double-tap on a touch screen) a card to send it automatically to the best available spot. The buttons above the table give you a New deal, Undo, Redo, a Hint when you are stuck, and Auto-finish to complete the game quickly once victory is certain. Undo is unlimited, so you can rewind as far as you like and try a different plan. Every deal has a seed number, so you can replay the exact same deal later or share it with a friend and see who solves it better.

Beetle Solitaire Strategy & Tips

Use Your Perfect Information

Beetle's whole appeal is that nothing is hidden, so the biggest mistake you can make is to play it like Spider, one reactive move at a time. Before you touch anything, read the board.

• Scan each column from top to bottom and note where the Kings, Aces, and matching suits sit. In Spider you cannot do this; in Beetle you always can.
• Look for natural runs that are almost together already. Two or three cards of the same suit in sequence, close to each other, are the seeds of a finished run.
• Since every deal is fully visible, a loss usually means a better plan existed. Undo freely and look for it.

Plan Complete Suit Runs Early

Mixed-suit runs are handy for moving cards, but only one-suit runs leave the table. From your very first moves, decide which suits you are going to finish first and build toward them on purpose.

• When you have a choice between two cards of the same rank, always place the one that matches the suit of the run you are building. A same-suit join keeps the run movable and brings it closer to completion.
• Mixed joins are not free. A red 7 parked on a black 8 does the job today, but that 7 and everything under it can no longer travel with the 8. Use mixed joins to dig, not to build.
• Work on two or three target suits at a time rather than all eight at once. Finished runs shrink the board and make everything after them easier.

Keep a Sorting Column

Try to empty one column early and then treat it as your workbench rather than a shelf.

• The 5-card columns on the right side are the cheapest to clear, since they start one card shorter.
• Use the empty column to rebuild messy stacks: move a mixed run there, peel it apart, and reassemble it in a single suit somewhere else.
• Do not fill your empty column with a random card just because you can. Park something there only as part of a plan, and aim to empty it again afterward.

Tidy Before Every Stock Deal

Each click of the stock drops one random card on all ten columns, right on top of whatever you have built. The state of the board at that moment gets frozen underneath.

• Before dealing, straighten everything you can: join runs, sort suits, and leave the bottom cards of your columns in descending order so the new cards have somewhere to go.
• Remember you cannot deal while a column is empty. If you must fill an empty column to deal, fill it with a high card or a long run, not a stray low card.
• Delay the deal as long as you have genuinely useful moves. Ten new cards are ten new problems, so arrive at each deal with the tidiest table you can manage.

Small Habits That Win Games

• Expose buried Aces and low cards early; every run must end in an Ace, and a buried one can block a suit for the whole game.
• Prefer moves that free a card or open a column over moves that merely look neat.
• Keep runs movable. A long descending run in one suit is both progress and a tool, since it can relocate in a single drag.

Frequently Asked Questions

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