This document describes the changes in versions 1.5 and 1.6 of Spades Deluxe.
Spades Deluxe 1.6
This minor update to Spades Deluxe fixes a few minor problems and adds a couple of new features.
• The Game Rules dialog includes a new rule: Allow both players to bid Nil. When this is checked on, both players on a given team are allowed to bid nil on the same hand. When off, only one team’s player may bid nil on a given hand.
• A new Results menu item has been added to the Game menu. This item displays a dialog that reports the number of games played, won and lost. It also allows these results to be reset to zero.
• The Plug Ins folder can now be located anywhere as long as an alias to it named Plug Ins exists in the same folder as the Spades Deluxe application. This enhancement is in preparation for new Freeverse games that will use the same Plug Ins as Spades Deluxe.
• Fixed a bug that caused the game window to draw improperly after a game was over. Previously, after a game was over, portions of the “discard piles” could be improperly drawn.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the Game Window’s scoreboard to not update after each trick when the game was automatically played by clicking the Coffee Cup on the first trick.
• Fixed a number of bugs that could (theoretically) cause Spades Deluxe to crash in extremely low memory situations.
• The AI has been enhanced to factor in the risk level of a player when determining how many high spades in a given hand should be used to prohibit a nil bid. Previously, if a hand contained a certain number of Spades above the Ten, a Nil bid would be prohibited. This was too “easy” and the AI would frequently bid Nil on hands that did not warrant a Nil bid. Now the number Spades above a Seven, Eight or Nine are considered depending on the risk level (conservative, average or agressive).
• When protecting a partner that has bid Nil, a player will no longer trump when it is not possible for the partner to take the trick by following suit. For example, if an Ace of Hearts is led, and the player is out of Hearts, it will throw off a low card in some other suit instead of trumping. The saves the player’s trump for later use.
Spades Deluxe 1.5
This update to the original Spades Deluxe featureed many new rules and features as well as dozens of AI improvements.
New Features and Fixes
• Moved Boss Coming from the File menu to the Special menu.
• Changed the keyboard equivalent of Hide Desktop to D.
• Removed the Close Box from the Game Window. This was in violation of the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines and was a mistake.
• The Game Setup dialog has been renamed to Game Rules and it has been divided into a Rules dialog and an Opponents dialog.
• A new Opponents item has been added to the Game menu.
• The Preferences, Game Rules and Opponents dialogs all have a new Help button that opens the appropriate section of the Help system.
• Games may now be played to 1,500 and 2,000 points.
• The Game Rules dialog now includes a Lead Style pop-up menu. This option controls how the first trick is played. The four options include High Bid Leads Any Card, Player to Dealer’s Left Leads Any Card, Two of Clubs Leads, Must Play Low and Two of Club Leads. For more information use the Help menu in Spades Deluxe.
• When bidding nil or double nil, there is now an option to pass four cards.
• The Sandbags option can now be configured for the penalty amount as well as the threshold at which the penalty is applied.
• Added a game variation called Ten for Two. If a team bids exactly ten, then they are playing for two hundred points (win or lose!). The partner of a player bidding ten could bid nil in which case the team would be playing for three hundred points!
• The Double Nil option has been renamed Blind Nil. Many people were confusing this bid with having both partners bid nil. In fact, a Blind Nil/Double Nil bid is bidding before the cards are seen and is worth two hundred points.
• A new preference, Always Show Scoreboard, forces the scoreboard to remain visible even after the first trick. However, clicking the Scorepad will toggle the scoreboard on and off in this situation.
• When the opponents bid nil and cards are being passed, a short animation is played showing their cards being passed across the table.
• At the end of each game, the number of games won and lost by the human is now reported.
• The contents of the Score Pad floating palette can be copied to the Clipboard by selecting the text and using the Copy menu item.
• The Score Pad floating window can now be cleared before every new game via a new option in the Preferences dialog.
• A divider is now always displayed between games in the Score Pad floating window.
• Computer bids now take a bit less time when Talking Voices are turned off in Preferences.
• Pressing ?, / or the spacebar has been added as an Instant Tutor hotkey. This will turn the tutor on for just the current trick (or just during the bid).
• Pressing Y, y, N or n when the Blind Nil dialog is open is now the same as clicking Yes or No.
• Pressing P or p when the Pass button is enabled is the same as clicking the Pass button.
• Fixed a bug that caused buttons like Pass and the Blind Nil and Bid Picker dialogs to incorrectly track the mouse even when another window was frontmost (like the Statistics floating window).
• Fixed a bug that prevented the scrollbar in the About/Help windows from working correctly.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the wrong player to lead when two players had equally high bids.
• Fixed the way the last hand of the game is handled so that players don’t say something like “Yeah, we made it!”, even though they lost the game.
• Fixed mouse clicks in the Blind Nil dialog, the Pass button and the Bid Picker so that they work like standard Macintosh buttons. A click is only “registered” if the mouse is still within the button originally clicked when the mouse button is released. Like normal Macintosh buttons, this allows you to click and change your mind before letting go of the mouse button.
• Fixed a bug that could cause some parts of the game to play slowly under Mac OS 8.5. (Notably the Bid Picker.)
• Fixed Tutor mode so that when multiple cards are worthy of being played, the card choice doesn’t flicker rapidly.
• Fixed a bug when switching to other applications while the desktop was hidden and a dialog such as the Rules dialog was open. When returning to Spades Deluxe, the controls in the dialog were disabled and the dialog could not be dismissed.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the cards to disappear when the Blind Nil dialog was up and something obscured the Game window.
• A click sound effect is now played when clicking the Pass button.
• New sound effects are played at the end of each hand as the score changes.
• New music is played whenever a game is won or lost.
• When sound effects are turned off in the Preferences dialog, click sound effects in the Bid Picker and Blind Nil alert are suppressed.
• When you, or your partner, bid nil, the message telling you to pass cards now tells you whether you should pass high or low cards.
• When playing the first trick and using the Two of Clubs Leads and Must Play Low lead style, the message will say “You must play your lowest club.” instead of something like “Your Lead.”
• The Statistics floating palette is no longer cleared immediately after a game ends. It now remains unchanged until the next new game starts.
• The scores portion of the Statistics palette is updated immediately after completion of a hand instead of waiting until the flashing animation on the Scoreboard is complete.
• The Sandbags portion of the Statistics palette is updated as the scoreboard flashes the score changes. This allows more time to digest the result of collecting ten sandbags. (Although the Score Pad floating palette can be used to see exactly when the one hundred points are lost.)
• If a player that bid nil takes a trick, their “Tricks Taken” portion of the Statistics palette is drawn in red to signify a bad thing.
• Corrected a number of misspelled words in the Help topics and changed the formatting a bit.
Artifical Intelligence (AI) Changes
The AI used by the computer to determine what to bid and which card to play has been significantly improved. Note that almost all of the changes below vary based on factors like skill level and play style. For example, Beginners can’t “remember” nearly as much information as Experts. Often the word “may” will be used in the items below to represent that few concepts in the Spades AI always take place.
• Players now remember which cards they’ve passed to their partners when one of them bid nil. This information can then be used to better “protect” the partner that bid nil.
• Players now remember which suits which players are void in. Additionally, they remember things such as which card was played on a trick a player was void in. Players also try to determine the highest card in each suit that a player may or may not have. All of this information is used in a variety of ways, but mostly to improve the ability of a player to protect a partner that bid nil.
• When a player is protecting a partner that bid nil, the player is much better at determining when they need to start trumping, and how high the trump cards should be. Previously, this wasn’t the case and a player could end up forcing their partner to trump and lose their nil bid. If the player knows for sure that their partner has something other than Spades (because it remembers which cards were passed) it won’t trump. Likewise, if we know the partner is out of Spades, we won’t trump. And if we know the partner has nothing but Spades left, the highest Spade will be played.
• When a player is protecting a partner that bid nil, and the player knows the partner is void of a certain suit, that suit may be lead (unless the player thinks the partner may be forced into trumping).
• When protecting a partner that bid nil, players no longer overplay the lead suit when there’s no possibility that the partner can take the trick. For example, the opponent leads a Queen of Hearts. The King of Hearts was played previously and the player holds the Ace of Hearts. Instead of playing the Ace of Hearts, the player will throw low and save the Ace to protect their partner later.
• If an opposing player bid nil, the player will most likely try to throw off their high cards in an attempt to force the nil bidder to take a trick. But, if the player’s team needs a significant number of the remaining tricks to make their bid, or if they’re going Ten for Two then the player will more than likely ignore the nil bidder and concentrate on taking tricks.
• When protecting a partner that bid nil and the option to throw off a low card arises, the player now makes a much better decision about which card to throw off. When possible, the player will try to throw off a card from the weakest suit in terms of protecting their partner. A card from a suit known to be void for the partner will not be thrown unless there is no choice.
• When trumping a trick where one of the players bid nil and that player was void of the lead suit, the player trumping may now play their highest spade in an effort to (hopefully) set the nil bidder. This will only happen if the player trumping in thinks the team is on track to make its bid.
• If a player is trying to set a nil bidder, and the nil bidder has already played their card (and can’t possibly win the trick), the player is now more likely to play high cards in an effort to create a situation where the nil bidder is forced to take a trick. A variety of factors are involved in the decision to play high cards, not the least of which is whether or not the player thinks his or her team can make their bid.
• When both partners bid nil, they no longer pass cards based on what the other partner bid. They’ll now both pass cards based on their own bid. This is a subtle change, but it increases the chances that both partners will make the nil bids. If one of the partners is set, both partners will now attempt to take tricks in an effort to set their opponents. (Also, remember, the rules of Spades do not penalize a team any points if both players bid nil and one or both go set.)
• When trumping a trick, it’s now less likely that the player will play their highest Spade. Since most players can remember a lot about the game, there’s a good chance they’ll know if any remaining players will try to overtrump.
• The more cards being passed, the more likely a player will bid nil. When passing four cards, you can pretty much count on at least one player bidding nil every hand. The chances that a player will bid nil are based on a number of factors including play style—aggressive players are much more likely to bid nil than are conservative players.
• If no cards are being passed on nil bids, then a player will never bid nil if they have the Ace of Spades. And in most cases, the King or Queen of Spades. Likewise, if a player has an Ace in a suit with only a few cards in that suit, it’ll be unlikely that the player will bid nil with no cards being passed.
• When playing the Ten for Two option, a player will never bid such that the total of the team bid exceeds ten. There’s nothing to gain by bidding any higher!
• When a player’s partner has already bid nil, the player’s bid will be larger than if the partner had not bid nil. In Spades Deluxe 1.0, this increase was often too large (which frequently caused the player to go set). This increase now takes into account the number of cards being passed or the play style of the player.
• When bidding and using the Two of Clubs Leads and Must Play Low lead style, a player will now factor in their clubs. If the low club is fairly high, the player may increase their bid a bit. And if the low club is too high, that player will most likely not bid nil.
• If a player has a large number of Spades, they are now less likely to bid nil. This can be influenced by the play style as well as by the number of cards being passed on nil bids.
• The total amount of all player’s bids is now limited. This means that if when the last player bids, if the total of the other three player’s bids is near 13, it’ll be unlikely that the last player will bid very high. Of course, it depends on just how good the player’s hand is and what their partner bid. Previously this was not the case and it was possible for the total bid count to get as high as twenty!
• A player will be unlikely to bid nil if their team is within sixty or so points of winning and the opponents need at least 150.
• If a player has bid one or two, it’s now less likely that the player’s partner will bid nil. The reasoning is that unless the player has an excellent nil hand, their partner may not be able to protect them if they only bid one or two.
• When a player bids more than three, and the partner has a decent nil hand, they are now more likely to bid nil than they were in Spades Deluxe 1.0. Like much of the AI, this is influenced by a variety of factors, not the least of which is play style. Aggressive players are much more likely to bid nil.
• When a player’s partner has already bid nil, the player is now less likely to also bid nil. (NOTE: This is not the same thing as a Double Nil—that’s a completely different concept.) Although aggressive players know there is no penalty for both players going nil if one (or both) of them goes set and this can influence whether or not both players end up bidding nil.
• It’s now very unlikely that a player will bid nil if his/her partner has already bid nil and the player holds the Ace, King, Queen, Jack or 10 of Spades.
• If a player has a large number of high cards in suits that are short-suited it is now less likely that the player will bid nil.
• If a player has a large number of high cards in a given suit relative to the number of low cards in the suit it becomes less likely that the player will bid nil.
• Players may now bid differently if their team is very close to winning, or if the opponents are very close to winning.
