Is it possible to be "too good" at Spider Solitaire? There was a similar question here: Losing at Spider Solitaire However, what I'm asking is different. The game has a rule that it would not deal the next ten cards, unless there is already a card in everyone of the ten slots. What I'm asking is whether it is theoretically possible that at any time, except the last deal, there might be a situation with less then 10 cards on the table? To me it feels like it should be possible, but it never happened to me, and I couldn't find any mention of it happening to anyone else...

The initial deal in Spider is 54 cards. Cards can only be removed in runs of 13 (A-K). So it is _theoretically_ possible for that initial deal to allow you to remove four full runs of cards and be left with only 2 cards on the board (13 * 4 = 52).

Here is one initial position where the cards are dealt almost in sequence that would create this scenario:


QD KD AS 2S 6D 7D 8D 9D 0D JD
2D 3D 4D 5D 9C 0C JC QC KC AD
5C 6C 7C 8C QH KH AC 2C 3C 4C
8H 9H 0H JH 2H 3H 4H 5H 6H 7H
JS QS KS AH 5S 6S 7S 8S 9S 0S
AS 2S 3S 4S