Mahjong Solitaire › All layouts › Spider Mahjong

Spider Mahjong

Spider Mahjong is a spider seen from above: a tall body in the middle, stacked five tiles high, with eight thin legs spread out to the corners.

It is one of the easiest layouts here. Most of the leg tiles stand on their own, so they are free from the start, and 50 tiles can be played straight away.

How to play

The rules are the same on every layout. Click two free tiles with the same face to remove them. A tile is free when nothing sits on top of it and its left or right side is open. Any flower matches any flower, and any season matches any season. Clear all 72 pairs to win. The how to play guide has pictures.

How the Spider layout is built

The legs are short stacks of two tiles in diagonal lines. The body is a diamond that rises to five tiles in the centre.

Tips for Spider Mahjong

• Use leg tiles as partners for body tiles. Matching legs with legs leaves the body untouched.
• Take the top of the body early. It is five high and covers the middle of the board.
• The one long row runs straight through the body. Work it from both ends.

Spider layout at a glance

Difficulty

Easy

Tiles

144 (72 pairs)

Layers

5

Board size

15 tiles wide, 9 rows deep

Free at the start

50 tiles

Cleared in our tests

About 70%

The Spider layout stacks its 144 tiles in five layers: 59 on the table, 59 on layer 2, 16 on layer 3, 8 on layer 4, 2 on top.

How we rate difficulty. We had the computer play 200 games on each layout, picking moves the same way our Hint button does. On Spider it cleared the board without a shuffle in about 70% of games. That is easier than the classic Turtle, which comes in at about 50%. People who plan ahead do better than that, but the order of the layouts stays much the same. The full list is on the all layouts page.

More easy layouts and favourites

Every layout uses the same 144 tiles and the same rules. The shape is what changes, and the shape decides how hard the game is.

Turtle MahjongClassic The classic 144-tile board. Five layers, a long tail at each end. Butterfly MahjongEasy Two open wings and a slim body. The gentlest board to learn on. Garden MahjongEasy Four small courtyards that never block each other. Quick and calm. Arena MahjongEasy An oval ring of seating around an empty floor. Tower MahjongEasy Narrow and tall, five tiles high at the top. Pyramid MahjongMedium Four tiers stacked into a solid block. Peel it from the edges.

See all 24 layouts, sorted by difficulty

Questions people ask

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