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- II. R U L E S F O R S P I D E R
-
- The object of the game is to build a stack of cards in the same suit from
- King to Ace and remove the stack from the table to the stacks above. When
- all eight stacks have been built and removed, you have won the game. A
- more challenging version of this is to leave all eight stacks on the table
- until done instead of removing those that are complete to the stacks above.
-
- One may move the next lower card onto a card of the same or different suit;
- however, one may only move contiguous cards of the same suit as a group. For
- example, one may move the 5 of spades into either a 6 of spades or a 6 of
- hearts. Moving the 5 of spades onto the 6 spades is a better move since now
- the 5-6 of spades group may be moved as a unit where the 5 of spades, 6 of
- hearts group may not. Also, moving the 4 of spades onto the 6 of spades is
- not a legal move. A King may only be moved into a space (or removed to the
- stacks above when the sequence K-Ace is complete) since there are no
- higher cards than a King.
-
- For general strategy, one wants to try to create a "space" since this is
- the most flexible way to move cards around. A space is where all cards in
- the table have been removed. Note: before dealing the next round, all
- spaces have to have at least one card in them.
-
- Also, when moving the cards, it is generally to your advantage to move
- the highest cards first and the lowest cards last doing the obvious moves
- first. For example, move a 5 of spades onto a 6 of spades, then Queen of
- hearts onto a King clubs before you move the 7 of clubs onto the 8 of hearts.
- Then you may choose to move 5-6 of spades group onto the 7 of clubs. The
- strategy is to combine the cards into same suit groups that may be moved as
- a unit. Once the group 5-6 of spades has been created, it may be broken
- up by using the middle mouse button on the lower card.
-
- More details about the game are below...
-
- THE INITIAL TABLEAU. Shuffle together two decks of cards (104 cards in all)
- and deal ten cards face down in a row. Deal three more rows face down on the
- first. Next deal one card face down on each of four piles (traditionally the
- leftmost four, but it doesn't matter; for aesthetic reasons some people
- prefer the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth piles), for a total of 44
- face-down cards. Finally, deal one card face up on each pile. These 54
- cards constitute the initial tableau. NOTE: In the description below, the
- card at the "bottom" of a pile is taken to be the last one dealt or played
- onto that pile, as opposed to the card that is underneath all the others in
- the pile. Thus the "bottom" card is the one displayed bottommost on the
- screen by the Spider program.
-
- BUILDING. All building is done in the tableau, there being no separate
- foundations. On the bottom card of a pile may be placed any card of
- next-lower rank, regardless of suit. (Cards rank King (highest), Queen,
- Jack, 10, 9, . . . , 3, 2, Ace.) The bottom card of a pile is always
- available to be moved, as is any sequence of cards at the bottom of a pile
- that are consecutive and ascending in rank and of the same suit.
-
- For example, suppose the 6, 5, and 4 of hearts are together at the bottom of
- a pile, with the 4 bottommost. They may be moved as a unit, or the 4 can be
- moved by itself, or the 5 and 4 can be moved without moving the 6. If the 6,
- 5, and 4 were moved onto a 7 of hearts at the bottom of some other pile, the
- four cards could then be moved as a unit onto any 8; if the 7 were not a
- heart, however, then once the hearts were placed upon it it would not be
- available to be moved until the hearts had been moved from it (to another 7
- or into a space; see below).
-
- When all face-up cards have been removed from a pile, the bottom face-down
- card is turned up and becomes available for play.
-
- SPACES. When all cards have been moved away from some pile, the resulting
- empty pile is called a "space" or "hole". Any card or sequence of cards
- available for moving may be moved into a space. A King, or sequence headed
- by a King, can be moved ONLY into a space, and once moved there can never be
- moved out (except into another space, which doesn't accomplish anything)
- unless it is being removed entirely as described below.
-
- THE HAND. The 50 cards not dealt initially form the "hand". Whenever you
- wish (typically, whenever you get stuck), you may deal a new row of ten cards
- from the hand face-up upon the piles. NOTE: You are not allowed to do this
- if you have any spaces. You must first fill them in. Notice that these
- additional deals tend to introduce discontinuities in the piles; that is, you
- can get cards covering others that are not next-higher in rank. If you get
- stuck after having dealt the last of the five additional deals, you have
- lost.
-
- OBJECT OF PLAY. When you have assembled a complete suit of thirteen cards,
- in sequence from King down to Ace, at the bottom of a pile, you may remove
- the thirteen cards from the tableau entirely. Cards so removed are never
- brought back into play; thus it is not always desirable to remove a suit when
- you have the opportunity (though it usually is), since it may pay to keep it
- around to aid in manipulating the other cards of that suit (recall that there
- are 26 cards in each suit). The game is won if you manage to remove all
- eight suits.
-
- If you find that a game is going so well that you're sure you're going to
- win, you can spice things up by trying to finish with as many completed suits
- as possible still in the tableau. Hardest of all is to finish the game with
- each of the eight suits brought together in sequence from King down to Ace,
- with all of the cards still in the tableau. Note that, once you start
- striving toward such a goal, you may make such a mess of the position that
- you won't be able to win at all!
-
- SCORING. Spider is a difficult game to master, and some players like to be
- able to evaluate their progress by scoring unsuccessful games. No rules for
- scoring are in the literature, but the program implements the following
- rather arbitrary formula: 10 points for each initially face down card that
- gets turned over; 15 additional points for each column where all the face
- down cards have been turned over (even if you don't manage to get a space);
- 2 points for each card that is sitting atop the next higher card of the same
- suit; 50 points for each completed suit removed from the tableau (in which
- case you do not also score for the 12 cards sitting atop next higher cards).
- This yields a maximum score of 990. If you win the game with 4 or more
- completed suits still in the tableau, add 2 points for each suit after the
- first three. Thus winning with all eight suits still in the tableau yields
- a score of 1000.
-
- ===========================================================================
- [Copyright (c) 1989, Donald R. Woods and Sun Microsystems, Inc.]
-
-