Keith Devens .com

Funny. I've never seen anyone upload a Spider Solitaire game to a blog. Could be I just don't get around enough.

Ha, no, I think it means I don't get out enough.

Seriously though, I won that game through sheer force of will. I refused to be beaten and I triumphed

Spider's a really good game.

spider solidaire can be beat w/o undo. and in less than 25 games.

Of course it can be beat without undo. Undo just brings you back to a position you've already been at. "... less than 25 games"? What are you talking about?

Have you kept track of your winning percentage? I'm curious to know how others do. I've been at 6% for quite a while.

I haven't kept track of my winning percentage. I don't play the game very much.

How 'bout:

Wins: 84
Losses: 166
Win Rate: 33%

MINIMUM use of undo! I'm taking 4 suite spider (Actually there's no other kind worth playing)

i can win spider solitare in 103 moves

I always use undo to the best advantage, and I have a present win percentage of 80% ( I think its approx. 56 wins/ 14 loss). I'm playing the most difficult level and I never abandon a game.
I'd like to find out if anyone else is playing this way and what there win % is.

Like you, Tony, I've been very interested in other people's winning percentages for some time. I've become more intellectually curious about the game as I play more and get better at it.

I play with unlimited undos. I've recently found http://www.solitaire-ranking.de.vu/. It is an interesting site but they don't seem to really condone the use of the undo feature. Their reason for this is that undoing will cost you a move...and that means less points. That site seems entirely too concerned with High Scores. I care little for high scores, because sure someone will randomly get a perfect draw once in a while and get a huge score. The challenge for me at least is trying to win every single game and to judge myself based on this percentage which would then eliminate any error from the aforementioned anomalously easy games.

Anyhoo...I'm not at my home computer, but my winning percentage is rounded to %53 right now. My win total is somewhere around 570. This is on difficult, 4 suit. I didn't bother clearing the stats even after I started to learn and lost probably 9 out of 10 for a month. I started winning but it took a long time to bring that average up. I've been playing much better recently and my longest winning streak is 12 games.

Please link any site that might make reference to winning percentage, as it would be nice to have some sort of "ranking" as they do on that german solitaire site I linked. I'm curious to see what else is out there.

Adam
el_burro_@hotmail.com

Won spider solitaire in 88 moves-no undos

just played your saved game and scored 1070 with 230 moves on 1st attempt, did not find it particularly difficult.

play spider solitaire, 4 suit, use the version with XP. It allows undo within the current deal, once a new batch of 10 cards is played, you cant undo past it.

A two years ago I would be at about 15%, last year was consistently about 25%, am now running in the 30%+ range.

Dont use undo much, usually only to test whats under two possible options.

Kent

December 14, 2006

Keith how do I get my original Spider Solitaire back. When I upgraded to Windows 2000 my Spider was deleted. HELP HELP
I miss it

I am right with Keith... I got a new computer that doesn't have any games on it and no matter how many web sites i search i can't find my beloved 4 suit spider... 1 suit... 2 suit, easy - but no 4 suit. where do I go - how do i get it?

I can't imagine being good enough at Spider to give a damn how many moves it takes to win.

Don't you hate a game so easy you just can't lose and you have to stack all the easy cards just to play another game? Sort of a hollow victory.

I've been playing two years on two suites and average 29%. How yall doin'?

Moving stuff around on my desktop, I moused Spider and it's vanished from desktop, files and everywhere...Help!

I'm on 4 suits and am at 34% win average. I've been playing for years though.

I use undo to pick between 2 choices most of the time. I don't undo a whole game to get back to a point where i can basically start over, but that's why my winning percentage is only 35% (2 suits) and 20% (4 suits). i just started playing but have been hooked on it and now it seems my girlfriend is too.

The last time I played I got 87 moves!
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!!!!!

"Minimum use" of "undo" is ambiguous. Either don't use it at all - or give yourself over to using it completely - as I do. Only one option or another allows you to compare win percentage.

My average is 52% (with 4 suits). Would be higher - except for awhile i was around 30% - and then I started getting better. I guess to compare - I need to start over.

I used to have this on my old computer but on my new one I can't get it. Can you help me?

i have 1747 wins
804 loses
68% win rate
most wins in a row 17
most loses in a row5

I have been playing medium level spider now for a while and have a pretty good record of 206 wins and 143 losses. Highest one game score is 1,151 so far but I have won games with far less points and a whole lot of moves that include the undo feature. My win loss Percentage overall just made it back up to 59%. I play for wins instead of score. I believe there is more pride in winning than just playing for individual game score. Right now my goal is to make it to 60%! I have never been there before. I usually play games one at a time but I have won 3 and a row and the most losses I have is 4 in a row. One of these days here I will sit and play and play until I lose and see how many I can win in a row. I love this game. I never get burnt out on it because I try not play to much. I taught my Mom a little how to play for wins the other night but I think she likes to play for indvidual game score. That is fine but I like having all those wins!

Nice forum Keith. Keep dealing good scores!

Greg

Using the undo to me is cheating... Woulds you look under the cards face down while playing on the table? I sure don't call that a win if you use the undo a lot just so you can win...

You all are full of it!!! There is no way 1st time player did it in 100 moves prove it!!! There is no way anyone does it less than 100 moves PROVE IT!!!!!

My question is. Is every single game theoretically winable??? if so where do you get your facts from??

Ok, I've come here to find out if undo is considered a valid move in Spider Solitaire. I have been using 1 undo at a time not even realizing that I could undo further (although I fail to see the point in that)
Anyway, my point here is that if this were indeed a competition solitaire game, your final score WOULD, in turn, reflect your undo moves and reduce your scores. Therefore, while I suggest that is not in any way "illegal" for you to UNDO, you will pay the price to that person which can clear the board with as few undos as possible.
Next subject.....is anybody interested in starting an actual spider solitaire competition? I think it would be very cool (if not very dorky) I vote for Chicago as Spider Central. (A) Becuase it's in the middle of the country and will reduce travel time for SS geeks everywhere, and (B) Because I live there.

I think the situation is quite clear,(as in black and white). there are two ways to play spider: a) for points & b) for wins.

let me define them (and yes I'm sure many already know this)

In the case of points the highest score comes from the lowest number of moves. using the undo feature is this case will always reduce your score. Most people who play this way are relying on the card fall, and will abandon most games as soon as they don't work rather then use the undo feature.

In the case of wins, the situation is the total opposite! Your primary aim is to win every time, the score is very secondary to that. The use of the undo button is very much required if the game is to be almost entirely of skill, otherwise you are dependant on the card fall to a huge degree.

Therefore, if you want the most skillful game which has the least factor of luck, its black and white:- full use of the undo function is correct.

If you only partly use the undo option then you are working in shades of gray and the scores etc become meaningless!

As to previous discussion about what win percentage is possible:
I don't believe it can be 100% because its impossible to totally eliminate luck since the card fall will always be random and its mathematically possible for certain combinations to give no opportunity of play, regular player will have all seen them, the ones where you can't move after a deal and have to go straight onto the next deal.
When that happens on the last deal..game over

Some mathematical genius out there would be able to work out the exact possible maximum over x number of games, however it will always have a variance due the the dealt luck factor. My guess would be the low to mid 90's

For those interested my percentage for hard(4 suites) floats around the 84%, I have seem 87%

On a last note, yes you can play for most wins without using the undo option at all(as you would in using real cards) but just like in regular patience/solitaire you would simply be playing against the odds and average score can't have too much meaning.

I rarely pay attention to the score, and use undo regularly. With this, middle level has been almost always beatable, but does require a lot of strategy.

My quest in spider solitaire, though, became to find out what happens when you have more cards in the pile, you also have empty spaces on the board, and not enough cards on the board to fill the empty spaces.

I finally did it. The game locked up.
see screen shot at:
www.pattcom.com/spider/spiderlockdown.jpg

I'm glad to find some spider fanatics. I hope someone can appreciate my efforts. My family just thinks I'm wierd (well, they know that).

Very interesting spiderlockdown, now if you could just do that in hard mode...

yes, the possible win percentage on medium would be much higher, something like 98%

Rockdweller you supposition is flawed! Even accounting for a random deal of cards, every game can be won! Using the formula

{52(3)/16} squared plus 10 - the number of cards moved you will always get zero (if you win the game) thus every game can be won resulting in a 100% win percentage. I have not been able to replicate this but I am currently designing a computer model.

You people must not be game designers, or must not have considered the possibility that both score and win percentage could be considered significant at the same time (or both.) Using a simple formula (current win percentage x average score would work) would seem to yield a number that could directly rank players based on ability.

Smart guys ready to pull out computer models and sit through 1000 or more Spider Solitaire games, but not ready to use your noggins enough to be able to figure the simple stuff out. BTW...when hanging toilet paper, the side that hangs down goes TOWARD the wall, not away from it.

How do i get it back since I accidently deleted the entire game section?

"e=mc2 wrote:Rockdweller you supposition is flawed!"

Really !!! Well in that case If I get dealt for example something like 4 kings, 4 five's & say a couple of aces on the last hand, could you please tell me how I could win?......

..There are so many combinations of dealt cards that prevent further play that it can't be 100%

Lisa if you have deleted your windows games, you will need to go Start>Control Panel>Add/Remove programs, then select add new programs (insert your windows CD) find the games and checkmark the boxes for installation.

Yes I agree with 69.205.89.192 that you could make a formula to merge the two results, however thats still a grey area since its not an absolute! which particular formula would you use and how much weight/bias to games won vs points etc.... I understand what you are saying, but its too loose to base a result on I would have thought.

if you're dealt 8 kings 4 fives 2 aces on the last hand, undo, then stack up king queen jack ---> all the way to 2 of the same suit as the ace to be dealt, and put it in the spot where the ace will land. on the deal, you'll complete a suit, and it will be taken off the board. if you can't do that, queen jack 10 --> to six of a single suit and put it where the five will land, then move the queen onto the king.

i've done that to win games that were going well but happened to result in no moves on the last hand.

eh?..... I thought I was a reasonably good player, but I don't understand any of what you've written. How do you undo a deal? ....where'd the queen etc come from?

Hi,
I used to play the original Spider made by Troy Miller in ca. 1992, but since he sold out to MS I've found this version quite irritating. Not being able to back up normally, save and restore games easily, always having to fill empty spaces before dealing a new hand.
Lots of things actualy, so I wrote my own version of the program which I play at home. Anybody interested ?
RaBur

Hello everybody,
I'm with undoer, I play the white kind of the game. I currently have 51% with 200+ wins.
I definitely agree with Rockdwelle when he says that there are games that cannot be won. Perhaps in a game with different rules where you could undo every move. Me guess is that for 4-suites you could win between 75% - 85% of the matches. The think that mostly limits this percent is that you cannot undo a draw or when a pile is removed.

I'm interested to see what win % everyone is getting in difficult 4-suit play when NOT using undo at all.

I've been sitting at about 26%, but has been better recently (maybe as much as 1/3). I don't keep track of the number of moves, but it's a high number since you always have to plan ahead and shift cards frequently. Without having undo available, it also takes a while to play, because you can't make mistakes (maybe 1.5 hours per game). The version of the game I've been playing doesn't even have undo available, which is fine since I don't want to use it, but would be nice to have available in case of an accidental click.

You can improve your results by following these spider solitaire strategy tips.

STR wrote:"The version of the game I've been playing doesn't even have undo available, which is fine since I don't want to use it, but would be nice to have available in case of an accidental click".

What version is that? - all windows versions allow undo that I've seen. (Ctrl+Z)

Once you use undo for an "accidental click", you will start using it for lots of 'mistakes'.....human nature and we're back to shades of gray again.

I have played the game around 2 years and my winning rate for most difficult 4 suite is 37%. Can any one tell me it is above average or below the average.

Thanks.

Connie

Can every game of spider be won?

When I first started playing 'spider difficult' years ago, I lost 839 games in a row. I must be a slow learner because my win percent now is only about 20% - so my question is: How do you determine whether or not to play a game? Number of visible moves?

my version of windows xp does not allow you to undo a draw, so comparing numbers is pointless...

Hello,
I'm a SS newbie, and I have a two-suit game that I cannot beat. Is there anyway I can upload the game and have some suggestions? I've read all the basic strategies and have applied them. The kings come out very late and you can't undo after the deal in my version. Please help, I'm losing a lot of sleep ^_^'''

On my old computer, I have a 60% winning percentage:

High Score 1006
Wins: 285
Losses: 183
Percentage: 60%
Most Wins in a row: 8

Takes me around 30 minutes to win a game, generally. Took me a long time to get good at it, and I cleared my stats after figuring it out (unlike Adam, above). By the way, Adam, over 500 wins is crazy.

Anyway, I was interested (and sort of disappointed) to see that the Vista version has a HUGE difference - It lets you undo past dealing new rows. This creates the possibility for a couple things:

1. Winning percentage should be significantly higher.
2. I might end up spending a longer time on an individual game.

Anyway, great game, but not for those who are easily frustrated. My best advice is to be thorough and take the opportunity to look at every card you can.

To answer an earlier question, I am almost certain every game can be beat. I played about 100 games or so on hard and played every game until I beat it. Some were extremely difficult, but they were beatable and I could not undo a draw.

I play on hard without using the Undo and my win percentage is about 60%, but I'm relatively selective on the games I choose to play. The games are actually much shorter than when I used to use the back button. 10-20 minutes per game. If I am not selective on which games to play, I'll win about 40% of the games.

When I play, I do not pay attention to my scores. It does not take much skill to get a high score, just luck. To get a high score you have to get the right cards dealt and also ignore some moves for later and hope it works out for you. That does not take skill, just luck. My lowest scoring games are usually my easiest because when I get free spaces, I do not take chances and I rearrange every last card to maximize the chance of winning. It also does not take skill to use the undo button, just patience.

Is there a spider solitaire competition?

My girlfriend and I play quite a bit of spider (4 suits, of course). Both of our winning percentages are around 30%. In general, we don't overuse the undo function on the first attempts (hence, the low winning percentage).

We also tend to replay difficult hands many times over (with lots of undos). I can't recall the last time we failed to conquer one of these hands, although we have have one now that we've been attempting for the past 3 days, which is looking bleak.

BTW, I found this thread by googling "difficult spider hands", based on the hunch that ~99.9% are solvable, but ~5% require a lot of skill/luck. I was hoping to post some of my more difficult hands and take a shot at some others.

Dont be silly - there are a great % that cannot be won - freecell for example has over 7000 permutations which have no possibility of a win - often these are rare and are structured where a 'line' of cards obstruct access to other cards - i predict it will be 85~90% winnable obviously - but i have more interesting things to do than to work it out <3

HELLO Keith,
I did your impossible game at fourth attempt with score of 1019 and 281 moves... it was fun thanks for posting it!!
nicola

I don't think the question was necessarily if there are unbeatable games. Of course there are. I think it was getting at whether or not the computer filters unbeatable games. I think it does just as it does for free cell.

I have won 185 games of Spider Solitaire at the "Difficult" level. What is the record number of wins at this level?

I have now won, at the "Difficult" level, 186 games of Spider Solitaire. Is this a significant number of 'wins'?

I just was my 187th game at the "Difficult" level.

Correction to my 16 Oct 08 e-mail:

I should've written that I "WON my 187th game. . . .
My typing error must've been due to my excitement of winning yet another game at the 'Difficult' level.

Just won my 188th game at the 'Difficult' level. Obviously, I'm the only one that visits this website. Oh, well . . .

Guess what? Yep. I just won game 189 at the 'Difficult' level.
Re cyberspace, I guess I'm the only one who cares.

I can't believe this guy has been coming back here for the past couple weeks to announce every game of spider solitaire he wins.

75.179.28.113, please advise what your win rate is at difficult level, also high score. Thanks

Win rate @ 'Difficult' level = 2%

Just won game 190 @ 'Difficult' level.

Go away.

WIN PERCENTAGE AVERAGE's

OK there have been some sensible comments here and some ridiculous ones.

To finalize this into one post for people looking for an answer about their own percentage average.

Originally I wrote in post 10383 that there are two ways to play spider, one for points and one for percentage, I called it B&W - Black for score only & White for %.

I then went on to say that partial use of the undo function results in scores that are shades of grey and are meaningless. You need to either NOT use undo, or FULLY use undo!
Read 10383

We are talking only about W % wins here in hard mode.

No undo: seems to vary from about 25%~45%. - will depend quite a lot on the random card fall each deal.

Full Undo in XP without deal undo function:
Good player 55~65%
Very Good player 66~75%
Excellent player 76~85%
Over 90%+...I don't believe you.
Note..100% is impossible as eventually you will get served a last deal that can't be solved.

Full undo in Vista that also allows deal's undo.
100% - takes on average about 35~55 minutes.(some really hard ones can take much longer)

I hope this clarify's thing's for those seeking an answer.

I thought the point of the game was to do it in as few moves as possible... so once you've won, play it again in fewer moves. Undo is fine since you're going to play it again anyway... Anyway, my record is 156 moves for 4-suit. Not excellent but oh well. I usually press F2 if I can't solve the game in 10 mins, since I'm looking for fewest moves.

"83.146.15.10 wrote:
I thought the point of the game was to do it in as few moves as possible."
That's the Black type of game, lowest moves = highest scores. which will always rely on card fall luck. (Read from the very beginning of this forum for more info)

on the fifth try w/ 195 moves; score 1105
not really all that hard... but why are you guys playing games that come up with a king in the first deal anyway? You automatically have one column you won't be able to move for a while... dump it, and try the next game.... common sense

basically, what does the score mean? nothing ... how many "undos" nothing .... consecutive wins is what it's all about ... I've only had 10...

To undo or not to undo that is the question.
I'm an undoer.
My dad was not aware of this option until I showed him. He tried it for a while but has reverted to going for points. I see that going for points means you are playing against luck. Going for wins is a test of you against machine.

It also seems that people play different versions of the game. On my comp' you can only undo to the last deal.

Love this thread.

Does anyone play without using Undo, without choosing the game they play, and without showing the next available move (pressing M)? It may not seem like it, but not using the M key will result in a small decrease (about 5%) in your win percentage. Try it sometime and see. Here's my record right now on dificult (no undo, no M, no game selection).

121 Wins
176 Losses
win pecentage: 40%
High score: 1129
Consecutive Wins: 12

Total games I've won on difficult is well over 1000, as I've reset my stats many times.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/1848/lessthan100mr3.jpg

Hi everyone!

Glad to have found this site. I have enjoyed reading the comments and discussions.

I have been restarting a particular 4 suit Spider game over and over since last night and am beginning to wonder if I have found my first unwinnable game.

Keith, would you mind posting the instructions on how to save a game so that it can be uploaded? I am on Windows XP.

I have always concentrated on winning every game. The exception is when I play one suit (which is rarely), then I try to get a lower number of moves.

~~~Lydia

xp version can not undo in two cases: 1. a deal, or 2. a stack playoff. Thus, it can not always be won, assuming the deal combinations are random, and not cooked by the game to make winning possible.

on a streak... felt lucky and reset the counter and am up to 23 wins in a row at 100% need more coffee

45 in a row...at 100% slowing down on the coffee

Discovered Spider solitaire about 5 months ago, and started playing the 2-suit medium level. I won the first 2 games, then hit a snag. But I found that eventually I seemed to be able to win every game.

Up until a couple weeks ago I had won 67 straight games. In short, although sometimes it took NUMEROUS tries, I won every 2 suit game I ever started. I naturally believed that EVERY 2 suit game could be won.

Then, two weeks ago I was dealt a game that I have not been able to win. I have played this game at least 30 times and continue to come up empty. A casual google search located your blog.

If you're interested I could send you this game from hell. Maybe you've got some insights I haven't.

BTW, I solved your game of Wednesday, December 14, 2005 in 8 tries, and although I usually never care about the score or move count, I had a score of 1109, and 191 moves. The second to last deal of something like 5 3's DID make it interesting.
So thanks for that....

Spider is one of the 2 best games ever invented.

This is a great thread for those serious about Spider. And if you are serious there is a real need to standardize what exactly Spider is (as is evident by this thread). Rockweller has the right idea. Basically to define the rules and standards for us serious arachnophiles.

The next step is to take what Rockweller has outlined and develop a website that uses a standard 4 suit game (I suggest the version with windows XP). And paramount to ending the confusion would be to rid this online version of the points, because as the game is played today, the % of wins is really the only reason to play (at least seriously).

Anybody interested in this prospect?

Would there be enough interest now or in the future to make it an active website?

Poet King writes "develop a website that uses a standard 4 suit game (I suggest the version with windows XP)"

Good idea, would take someone some time to create and costs to keep up, so would need a sponsor.

If you were to do as you say, then yes it would defiantly have to be the version that does not allow deal undo, unlike as is currently found on Vista and is much less satisfying, (100% all the time) and yes the points do become meaningless with win percentage.

I would suggest that it had two fixed versions: one with full undo (thats with no deal undo as per the XP version) and one with no undo at all for those that prefer that.

One thing I would also like to see is a allocated game number, (such as Freecell has) with the ability to reload that game to retry it.

I've been playing for a couple of years now and just thought I'd have a look around and see what others have achieved. I've enjoyed reading this thread and seeing it evolve.

I have a suggestion; we need to standardise a way of quoting personal stats.

One way might be: state which version of the game you are playing, how many suits you play, which stat is important to you, how many games you have played and your win rate or best score. e.g.

No undo past deal - 4 suits - % wins - 100 - 53%

There may be other ways to better qualify things and I hope others take this idea and improve on it.

Hey,

Just found this site looking for spider records.

Feeling good about myself after scoring 115, 102, 100, 108 and then 90 moves (1210) replaying the same game.

I will create a page on our website on the news page so that anyone can see my screendump of the game.

Does anyone know what is the lowest score that can be achieved on 1 suit spider? I note that there are a couple of people above who have beaten my score, but I would like to see a screen dump of this, to satisfy my ego!

i have enjoyed reading (and laughing at) this thread cause i thought i had spent a lot of time playing 4 suit spider on vista but i now see i am an amature. I'm at a %15 win rate but i don't sift through games as much as possible, and no i don't drool on myself. i think rockdweller needs to start a spider solitare club and i would vote him the president hands down as evident from this thread. he should then get to decide who is in and who isn't after a application process. players like myself would not be accepted until becoming more proficient, unless u had a ranking system and handicaps and such. then he should make spider solitaire hats and polo's for members only and have meetings every week to bring in your hardest game u found that week to challenge club members with, as well as heads up competitions. you could do different match styles (timed, highest score, highest win percentage, with/without undos, etc...) and it would be nerdtastic. then u could have nap time after a juice box intermission.

Check out Spidercards.com if you want to know the best possible score. He shows you how he did it and the score is the same for 1 suit or 4 suits.
Game On!

Dear Keith My gateway computer just crashed with my favorite spider solitiare game the December 2005 version. Can you help me get it back ??? i LOVED THAT GAME I would play it for hours.I tried to download it off of your site. But when I try to open it ,it say their is an eror in the site. Can you please help me please. Mary my e-mail address is gngplus2@wctatel.net Thanks again looking foward to hearing from you!!!

i hav done spider in 100 moves without any undos, i got a score off 2000. i am tryin 2 beat it !

Got the game going through my mind all the time. Its so fun! My record on difficult is 1072, although I have been over 1060 a handful of times.
Withover 200 games played, my win percentage is 33% with a high streak of 15 wins or so.
Re: undo, it is not cheating for points since it lowers your score. As for wins, some games are only winnable if you undo.
And I absolutely do not believe you can beat difficult with 150 moves or less unless you have an ABSOLUTELY PERFECT set up.

2000 is bullshit

Spider Solitaire, difficult 4 suits, 4 consecutive winning games, total winning games 302, is that good?

With high score of 1127.

High Score: 1180
Wins: 3390
Losses: 732
Win Rate: 82%
Most Wins: 22
Most Losses: 6

Sorry, this was on medium

i just won 6 games in a row on advanced (4 suite)...anyone had more than that ever? it was an unbelievably lucky series of deals apparently, or i was just really on haha...

here is a photo, not sure if it will work...

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-...325_1593090212_30336395_6621594_n.jpg

--joel

i does anybody know why my spider solitair is dealing two rows at a time when it should only be one row thank you

wins 8034
loses 3504
win rate 69%
Most wins 18
most loses 6
high score 1209
and lowest amount of turns 97