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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.
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[Copyright (c) 1989, Donald R. Woods and Sun Microsystems, Inc.]
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