My partner always plays the difficult level, and wins pretty frequently.
And, of course, having posted that, I failed miserably on the next three.
In the version I use, you can undo all the way back to the beginning.
In the Windows version, you’re limited in an unfortunate way.
It’s beatable either way - just less beatable if you can’t really go back and say “yeah, that was the wrong four.”
I just checked the stats on the version I play. (Junod’s 1992 old Win3.1 version.) It has me at winning around 35%. But since my goal is not just win, but win with not moving any piles up, I will frequently quit if I can’t achieve that. I also will usually not bother moving piles up once I’m done. So figure at least 50%, maybe a lot higher.
Pretty Good Solitaire does a better job of keeping stats, but I hate playing it. It automatically moves piles up (which I have to back up) and that can’t be turned off.
Neither game keeps score like Sun Solitaire which has not moving piles up as a bonus rather than a penalty.
Wait – Am I the only one who considers the “undo” a bit of a cheat? You make your move, you live with it; you don’t get to move your cards/pieces back and reset them if it ends up you made a bad choice. I’m not basing this on some set-in-stone rule for Spider Solitaire, but just on general rules of game play, so I’m not being critical of those who disagree with me.
I play it with the “undo” but once I’ve “undone” I sort of consider the rest of the game a throwaway. I would consider a true “win” at the advanced level to be one where you didn’t back the game up when you realized it wasn’t going your way. Has anyone ever won it without the “undo”? FTR, I can’t win at the advanced level even with the “undo.” 
For some games, I would agree with you. Not, however, for Spider Solitaire. Why? Because I consider it to be, first and foremost, a puzzle game.
For me, all puzzles are the slow process of evaluating and making the proper decision between a variety of options. Does this fit there? Will this fit here? What about this option?
Playing Spider in a purist fashion is just moving cards onto their like suit and hoping that you hit a good run / get lucky when you decide to move this 9 or that 9. You hardly ever win that way (probably never on the hard level) and it’s just not as interesting as figuring things out.
So if it helps to assuage your guilt ( 
) Consider Spider like a puzzle. You put pieces together, you try things — if they don’t work, you undo them and reconsider.
In addition, if you’re playing for points, you’ll get fewer points when you win the more you backtrack.
I just did it! First time! Whee!
I’d tried it before and given it up for a lost cause but after reading this thread, I thought I’d take another whack at it. I did better than I have in some 2-suit games; took me three tries to win it!
I guess it’s the extensive practice with shuffling runs around in the 2-suit game that made the 4-suit game seem easy. I don’t know how much I’ll play it, though. I think I prefer the pace and strategy of the 2-suit game but at least I no longer feel like a knob who can’t manage the 4-suit variation - yay!
I win it regularly. But I will replay and replay until I do, and I get rather testy if I don’t win eventually. (Four suite version.)
For the record, my occasional wins have been without using undo. Just to say, it is possible. I hadn’t thought of approaching it like a puzzle and using undo liberally (is that my husband’s secret??? hmmm). I’d consider that, but I have a tendency to be a purist on that type of thing.
I don’t play Spider very often, but when I do, it would never have occurred to me to use Ctl-Z the way most of you do. Like Jodi, I might do it out of idle curiosity (I wonder if doing that would have worked?) or frustration (Is this game even winnable?), but I never as a strategy. Why not just deal all the cards face up? (Obviously you can’t if it’s on a computer, but doesn’t that tell you something?)
Of course, now I’ll have to try it, but if it turns I like it better, I’ll be a bit mad that the game is “flawed” in my mind. It just . . . shouldn’t be that way!
Well I figure if I’m just going to retry the game until I win, it’s faster to ‘undo’ portions of one game than to start all over again. Either way, I’ll win eventually so to my mind it’s not a cheat. I do often restart games from the beginning when my ‘conservative’ strategy is failing and I go to the ‘radical’ strategy.
For Freecell, OTOH, I had a rule of my own that I couldn’t start a new run in an empty space unless I started it with a king (like classic solitaire). It’s not a Freecell rule but it was mine and, as with Spider, I won most games eventually so I kept to my rule.
…at least on the Windows 7 version of SS. I’m currently on a streak of 115 straight wins with the Advanced option, which leads me to believe that all games are winnable (although one game took me about 4,000 moves to win).
Strategies that I use* to reduce the difficulty* of winning a hand are:
[ul]
[li]Use F2 to find a starting hand with at least 3 in a run in one suit[/li][li]Try to have, in addition, 2-3 more moves[/li][li]Avoid hands starting with 3 or more of a kind (eg 3 aces)[/li][li]Avoid hands with more than 2 kings[/li][/ul]
Once you have a starting hand, you’ll know within the first “deal” whether this is going to be a “points” hand (minimum moves = no CTL-Z). If it is clear that it isn’t going to be an easy win, starting hand, be merciless in using CTL-Z. Very few games are winnable without using it so you might as well use it–even returning to the start if you have to.
Use other strategies mentioned here to the max.
Move the cards from right to left if you can because the goal is to exhaust piles as soon as you can and there is one less card on the six rightmost piles.
Of course always try for same suit moves but on the really tough hands you may find that you can break it by doing something unexpected, like putting the 5 of clubs on the 6 of hearts instead of the also-available 5 of hearts.
Always try to have as many piles with a run or only one card face up on a pile as possible at the end of each deal. For example, if you have a pile with a long run (face up) ending in a six and a 5 on top of a six of a different suit on a second pile, move the five to the long run. The reason for this is that you want to be able to turn cards up and you chances of doing that are greater with only one card or a run of the same suit.
Use garbage piles. In other words, if you already have a pile that has 3 cards of various suits, pile more cards on the bottom of that in order to preserve piles with only one card or a run.
Could go on but you’ll figure this out.
The Advanced game is a continual challenge but fun once you get the hang of it. Never give up on a game. I had one game where I had no possible moves for the last 3 deals but managed to work away until I got one move on the last deal and then won.
I’m not completely sure of this, but I’m fairly sure that I’ve observed that using CTL-Z results in a slightly different deal the next time, so a game which may have been unwinnable may turn into one that is winnable. Don’t quote me on that though!
I’ve done it a few times. Maybe 3 or 4.
Moving thread from IMHO to Game Room.
Shuffle that zombie on over.
swidt
There are other threads on this. Yes it’s possible, I’ve done it many times, and I don’t use Undo. But it’s not easy. Look for the other threads, some strategies are laid out. But it’s not like Freecell where all but a few games are winnable (unless you use Undo or restart the game). You have no idea what cards will be uncovered from a stack, so it’s a matter of best guesses.
Just checked my stats, I have a 4% win rate.
ETA:
Ugh! Zombie Solitaire.
I reset my stats a while ago and now am at a 10% win rate. I do ctl-z, and don’t even look at points. My record is three consecutive wins - maybe done that once. I don’t play unless there are four suit -on-suit moves available. I’ve seen that I win far more often when you can get four consecutive in a suit from the opening directly.
I think the secret is really figuring out the complex move sequences to build up runs of a suit. Empty piles help a lot. I’m pretty sure not all hands are winnable, since I think you can easily construct one that isn’t.
I spend way too much time on this game, as should be obvious.
I have a 5% win rate on advanced, but I tend to quit a lot of games I could’ve won, as I like to play in a certain way and the cards don’t always fall that way. My best score on advanced is 1098.
Seems like you are contradicting yourself. You say that all hands are winnable but then only play hands with 3 in a run.