You do not have to customize your rules, we have many "point and click" styles of spades rules so no experience needed. However, if you choose to customize the rules to your needs, here is a quick chart to help you with the many styles of spades we have.

RULE OPTIONS	Traditional	Modern  Internet	Suicide	Expert	Afro American
Dealing Rules
Jokers included in deck	N	N	N	N	Yes
Remove two of clubs and hearts from deck	N	N	N	N	Yes
Two of spades is higher than ace	N	N	N	N	Yes
Bidding Rules
Bidding team by team around the table	Yes	N	N	Yes	Yes
Regular bids must match number of spades in hand	N	N	N	N	N
Double nil bonuses (everyone bids nil)	Yes	N	N	Yes	N
Suicide (must have at least 1 nil bid)	N	N	Yes	N	N
10 for 200 bidding: 200 points for exactly 10 tricks	N	N	N	Yes	N
Moon bonus for all 13 tricks	N	N	N	Yes	N
Bidding for exact number of tricks				1 to 12
Blind Bidding Rules
Must be how far behind (losing) to bid blind nil	100	0	0	100
Blind bidding for minimum number of tricks				7 to 12	7 to 12
Blind bidding for exact number of tricks				1 to 12
Card Exchanging Rules
Cards exchanged for nil bids	0	0	0	0
Cards exchanged for blind nil bids	2	0	0	1
Cards exchanged for double nil bids	2			2
Cards exchanged for blind moon/exact bids				2
Scoring Rules
Game goes up to	500	500	500	750	500
Points per overtrick (sandbag)	1	1	1	1	1
Overtricks per trip	10	10	10	10	10
Penalty per trip	-100	-100	-100	-100	-100
Points for nil bid	50	100	100	50
Points for blind nil	100	200	200	100
Penalty for failed blind or double nil bids cut in half	N	N	N	N	N
Tricks from failed nil bids count for partner's bid	N	Yes	Yes	N	N
Forced Move Rules
Can not lead spades until spades "broken"	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N
Must trump if possible	N	N	N	N	N
Always allowed to trump after someone else trumps	N	N	N	N	N
Rake'em and shake'em	N	N	N	N	Yes

A quick chart to help you see how many points each kind of bid is worth. Remember that most of these rules can be changed or turned on/off. This chart is based on the total bid per team, except for the Nil bids which are individual bids seperate from the team bid.

Team Bid	Normal	Exact	Blind	Blind   & Exact
Cards exchanged	N	N	Yes	Yes
Nil	50 or 100		double
Double nil bonuses	250 or 500 (nil x 5)		500 or 1000 (b-nil x 5)
1	10	double		double
2	20	double		double
3	30	double		double
4	40	double		double
5	50	double		double
6	60	double	double	double
7	70	double	double	double
8	80	double	double	double
9	90	double	double	double
10	100	double	double	double
11	110	double	double	double
12	120	double	double	double
13 (Moon)	130 or 200		double

The below chart shows bids where you must be behind (losing) by a certain amount before you can do the bid. Some of these options are can be customized.

Bid	Must Be Losing By
Nil	n/a
Blind nil	usually 0 or 100
Double nil (bonus rule off)	n/a
Double nil (bonus rule on)	200 or 40% of game end (whichever is more)

The below features are on our spades todo list but we do not know for sure if or when they will be finished.

• you tell us what we need to do...

Got any suggestions? Email us. We like to hear from you.

MPI is pleased to announce that spades has been released to the public in the December 2003 version of Canasis. So far it appears to be running very smoothly according to several experienced spades players. If you find any mistakes, problems, or rule options that need to be added please contact us.

If you are a spades fan, we ask that you help spread the word about our new spades by setting your Messenger status message to "spades at http://Canasis.com". Thank you to everyone who does this.