I play Spider Solitaire, level 3, and I have to say that I'm glad there are only three levels to this torture. The problem with Spider is that it is not only addictive, it is also the hardest type of Solitaire there is. I tried to play it once without using a computer, until I found out that it required four decks of cards to accomplish the feat. It also requires a table surface about six feet long and four feet wide. Needless to say, I now only play Spider Solitaire on my computer. The family is profoundly happy about this because now they can actually sit at the dining room table to eat again. The floor was getting old pretty fast.
I used to play level one, when level one was not yet boring. Level one consists of spades only, and you must accomplish the feat of getting all of your cards in sequence from kings to aces and you must do that eight times. When I could consistently win at level one it became so dull that I couldn't stand to look at that green background any longer. It was time to move on to level two. At level two you get two suits of cards and must get them all in sequence according to suit. This is twice as hard and takes longer to get boring, but it does eventually move you to tears. Some people get so bored with level one they just skip the middle-man altogether and move right to level three. This serves the purpose of getting you addicted that much faster, and by that time, it is too late. Now there is no turning back.
Now you are at level three. Here is the land where boredom has no home. You will never get tired of level three because you will never achieve proficiency at it. If you are proficient and bored at level three, let me know and I will introduce you to another really annoying game called, Sim City 4: Rush Hour. That is a game that I have found is much more fun to play when you are using cheat codes. Spider Solitaire at level three means you must get all four suits in sequence eight times. Try to do it in one hundred moves or less and you will definitely go insane. I have been known to do it in 116 moves, but who's counting? If you also play and you can do better than that, let me know and I'll dedicate my next winning game to you. Don't hold your breath, however.
They call this game Spider because you have to get eight "legs" of the beastie before you can win the game, and if it sounds easy, that is only because you are still sane and have not tried this game. Once you have played it your mind will be gone and so will your time because you will not accomplish much else for the next few weeks, until you have managed to win your first game. By that time you're already sadly hooked and flopping around in the net. You will never look at a spider the same way again. Perhaps an even better analogy would be that of a spider's web. Careful where you step because the web is sticky as heck and the tarantula is coming for his supper.
Most computers hatched after the year 2000 have this game already programmed into their hard drives, so that nobody can honestly say that they have never seen it before, or heard of it before. Unless your P.C. still runs Windows 3.1 or 95, you more than likely have this game hidden somewhere in your personal wild kingdom. If you have not played it before, it is probably due to one of three reasons: 1. You hate spiders and anything associated with them, 2. card games make you nauseous during a full moon, or 3. you are visually impaired and cannot play Spider by braille. Regardless of the reason why you don't play, you are probably much smarter than me.
Spider Solitaire is so painful because even though you know that it is a random shuffle of the deck, you will always wonder why it is, that every time you need a certain card to complete a leg of the spider, it will either be on the bottom of the pile of cards still turned face-side down, or it will be buried under a stack of cards face-up, with thirty-two other unassociated cards piled atop it. Either way, you will go crazy before you see that card come up on top where you can use it. These so-called "random" shuffles are quite creative, especially when you deal out a row of cards and all you get are aces and queens.
If you manage to start your first row with a king, you will never see a queen until at least two more rows have been dealt. This assures you of having a conniption fit that will break the sound barrier. If you get a row full of aces, you won't see a two again for many moons. I have found that it is sometimes easier to just slap the cards out any which way, whether the suits correspond or not, just to get down through the layers until I find something I can use. I call this the "random play maneuver" and this technique has won me more games than I care to admit. You may call Spider Solitaire a "strategy" game, but unless your strategy is to completely lose your marbles you will probably have to throw all of your strategic thinking right out the window.
Whoever it was that created Spider Solitaire is a genius, plain and simple. Man, woman, or committee, whoever it was, has a guaranteed hit on their hands, because everyone who plays Spider, falls in love with it from the word go. How many other computer games can lay claim to that? Before you start naming them, let me remind you that Spider Solitaire is a card game and should not be compared with, say, anything with the word, "doom" in the title. Next week when they release Spider Solitaire 2: The Cards of Doom, I will eat my words, but until then you are listening to the profundity of the wise....more or less.
