More is always coming

Beetle Solitaire

Forty-four cards face up across ten columns, and sixty more waiting in six rows that will land on top of everything you build. Nothing is hidden here — but most of the deck has not arrived yet.

Forty-four dealt, sixty held
Six forced stock rows
Nothing face down
Eight suited runs

Runs0/8

Stock deals6

Moves0

Deal one face-up card to every column.

Build down by rank and move same-suit sequences.

Forty-four dealt, sixty held

Beetle Solitaire rules

Worth printing for the stock rule — Beetle deals into empty columns, which Spider will not do.

Beetle Solitaire setup and rules
Setup
Decks	Two standard decks — 104 cards.
Tableau	Ten columns: six of four cards and four of five, forty-four in all.
Face down	None. The opening board is entirely visible.
Stock	The remaining sixty cards, dealt as six rows of ten.
Moving cards
On a column	Down by rank. Suit is ignored when placing.
Moving a group	Only a descending run in one suit travels together.
An empty column	Accepts any card or run.
Removing a run	A complete king-to-ace run in a single suit clears itself.
The stock
A deal	Puts one face-up card on every column at once.
How many	Six deals, and then the stock is gone.
Empty columns	A deal fills them too. There is no rule requiring every column to be occupied first.
Reversing it	Not possible. A dealt row sits on top of whatever it landed on.

Six forced rows

How to play Beetle Solitaire

Forty-four cards go out as ten columns — six of four cards, four of five — all face up. The remaining sixty sit in a stock that deals a full row of ten whenever you press it, six times in total.

Cards build downward by rank with suit ignored, but only a same-suit descending run can be moved as a group. A king-to-ace run in one suit clears itself, and eight of those wins the game.

The opening board is small and completely legible. What makes Beetle hard is that it is only forty-two per cent of the deck, and the rest arrives in blocks you cannot refuse or reorder.

A space you are still holding when you deal is a space you lose. Spider protects you from this by refusing to deal while any column is empty. Beetle has no such rule: the row goes out regardless, and the empty column you worked for takes a random card like everything else. Fill it deliberately before pressing deal.

What the stock forces

What the stock rule permits

Legal and illegal Beetle moves
The move	Verdict	Why
A column shows the 7♣. You place the 6♦ on it.	Legal	Placing ignores suit.
You move the 6♦ 5♦ 4♦ run on to a black seven.	Legal	One suit, descending — it travels as a packet.
You move the 6♦ 5♣ 4♦ run on to a black seven.	Illegal	Mixed suits will not move together.
A column is empty. You deal a stock row.	Legal	Unlike Spider, Beetle deals whether or not columns are empty.
A column is empty. You move a run into it first.	Legal	Also legal — and usually the better order.
A ♠ run completes from king down to ace.	Legal	It clears at once, one of the eight you need.
The stock is spent. You gather the tableau to redeal.	Illegal	Six deals is all there is.

The rule that catches Spider players

Beetle will deal on to an empty column

Spider checks every column before it lets you deal, and refuses while any of them is empty. That rule exists to stop you wasting a space, and players learn to rely on it without noticing.

Beetle checks only that the stock has ten cards left. Press deal with a column open and a random card drops into it, undoing whatever the space cost you. It is the single most common way a comfortable Beetle position turns awkward, and it is entirely avoidable — the game will not stop you, so you have to stop yourself.

Surviving the deals

Beetle Solitaire strategy

Squeeze the board dry before each deal. Every move you make before a row lands is a move made on a shallow, readable board; every move after it is made on a deeper one.

Fill your spaces before dealing. A king or a long run put into an empty column just before a deal protects the space and gives the incoming card somewhere sensible to sit.

Build in suit early, when columns are short. Four cards deep is the easiest a Beetle column will ever be. By the fourth deal, unpicking cross-suit placements costs several moves each.

Count the deals down. Six is not many, and the last two land on a board already carrying most of the deck. Plan for the board you will have at deal five, not the one in front of you.

Three ways a row hurts

What a stock row does to a good position

Dealing a row with columns still tidy

Each deal puts ten face-up cards straight on top of every column, and a card that lands on a carefully built run cuts it in half. Deal when you have run out of moves, not when you have run out of patience — and take every move available first, including small ones.

Leaving a column empty when you deal

Beetle will happily drop a stock card into an empty column, which is the most wasteful thing that can happen to a space you worked for. If you are about to deal and hold an empty column, put something useful in it first — a king, or a run you want to protect.

Packing across suits in the first two deals

There are still sixty cards to come, and every cross-suit placement you make now is a card you will have to move individually later, under four more rows of fresh cards. Early tidiness is worth much less here than in the no-stock versions of this game.

Eight runs, how often

Is Beetle Solitaire winnable?

Harder than Mrs. Mop, easier than Spider. Nothing is hidden, which is a real advantage, but sixty cards arriving in six forced blocks is more disruption than Spider's fifty — and Beetle will not protect your empty columns the way Spider does.

Deals are usually lost in the middle, around the third and fourth rows, when the board is deep but the stock is not yet spent. We do not publish a win rate: for this family the number turns on the stock rules, and Beetle's are the most punishing on this site.

This version

Ten columns, six deals, no protection for spaces

Two decks: ten columns of four or five cards, all face up.
Build down by rank ignoring suit; only same-suit runs move as a group.
Empty columns accept any card or run.
Six stock deals of ten cards, landing face up on every column.
A deal proceeds even when columns are empty.
Eight suited king-to-ace runs wins the game.

Undo is unlimited and unpenalised, with no timer or score.

Against the spiders

How the stock rules compare

Four games, one packing rule, and four different answers to the question of what the game does to you while you are playing it.

Beetle compared with Spider, Mrs. Mop, and Simple Simon
Game	Dealt at the start	Stock	Face down	Dealing with empty columns
Beetle	44	60 in six rows	None	Deals into empty columns
Spider	54	50 in five rows	44 cards	Every column must be filled first
Mrs. Mop	104	None	None	No stock at all
Simple Simon	52	None	None	No stock at all

The last column is the one to remember. It is the only rule in this table that will cost you a position without any warning from the game.

Explore

More solitaire games

The famous cousin, the version with no stock, and the single-deck starting point.

Tested rules

How this solitaire game is checked

Game logic is implemented and tested by Brian Hamilton, then reviewed by Karan Hamilton for rule clarity, player flow, and correction notes.

How we make and test solitaire games