Play Long Tail Solitaire Online — Spider With a Bottomless Reserve
Long Tail is one-deck Spider on five narrow columns, with one thing no other Spider game has: a reserve of unlimited depth. Two cards start in it, any card may be added one at a time, and only the top card is in play — a stack you can grow as tall as you like. The columns build down regardless of suit, a run of one suit travels, and a complete king-to-ace suit run leaves the board. The stock deals a card to every column, empty ones included, nine times. Four suits wins.
Setup
Shuffle one deck. Deal five columns of one card, face up, then two cards face up into the reserve. The remaining forty-five cards form the stock, which deals nine rows of five. The four scoreboard piles start empty.
Rules
- Building: a card goes on any card one rank higher, of any suit.
- Moving runs: only a packed run of one suit travels as a unit.
- The reserve takes any single card, without limit. Only its top card may be played, onto a host or into a space.
- Spaces take any card or any one-suit run.
- Stock: each click deals one card to every column, including empty ones.
- Collecting: a complete king-to-ace run of one suit leaves the board at once.
- Win when all four suits are collected.
Strategy
A reserve that never fills sounds like a gift, and it is a trap. Every card you put in it is under every card you add later, and the columns you empty by parking get covered again on the next deal. The tail is long; keep yours short.
- Park in reverse. The reserve is last-in-first-out. The card you will want first must go in last. Two cards that must come out in order should go in the other order.
- Five columns is not many. Nine deals put nine more cards on each, so a column that starts untidy ends buried. Build in suit from the first move and use the reserve to keep mixed cards off the columns.
- Deal only when the reserve's top card is placed. A deal covers every column; if the reserve's top card had a host, that host is gone.
- Seed spaces with kings. An empty column filled by a dealt card is a one-card column. An empty column you seed with a king from the reserve is the base of a suit.
- Do not dig for one card. If a card you need is deep in the reserve, everything above it must come out onto columns first. Count the hosts before you start.
- Finish suits in the columns. A run is collected only from a column. Cards in the reserve count for nothing until they come out.
Where It Sits in the Spider Family
Long Tail is a Relaxed Spider member — the stock deals onto empty columns — with the family's cell axis stretched to a reserve of unlimited depth. Short Tail is the same game on two decks and eight columns; Spider Web has a single one-card cell; Astrocyte has four.
Other Games to Try
About This Version
Long Tail runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer and it works offline. You get unlimited undo, a hint button that names a legal move, statistics that track your wins and times, and seeded deals: every game has a seed you can replay, so a board you enjoyed (or lost) can be played again exactly.