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Canadian Salad

Plays many players. Use as many decks as needed to deal each player 10-15 cards, removing low cards until deal is even.

For example:

Three players: one deck of 51 cards, remove the 2 of clubs.
Four players: one deck of 52 cards. IDEAL GAME!!!
Five players: one deck of 50 or two decks of 100 cards, remove the 2s of clubs and 2s of diamonds.
Six players: one deck of 48 or two decks of 96 cards, remove all the 2's.
etc............

Canadian Salad
ROUND	OBJECT	Points EACH if caught	Full Game	Medium1	Medium2	Short
1	No Red Cards	5	X	X	X	X
2	No Even Cards	5	X	X
3	No Tricks	10	X	X	X	X
4	No Hearts	10	X	X
5	No Face Cards	10	X	X	X	X
6	No Sevens	30	X	X
7	No Aces	30	X	X	X	X
8	No Queens	30	X	X
9	No One Eyed Face Cards	40	X	X	X	X
10	No King of Spades	75	X	X
11	No Last Trick	75	X	X	X	X
12	All of the Above	Score each separately	X		X

NOTES:

Low score wins, so you do not want to take points.
Games is played like SPADES except there are NO TRUMPS at all, and only twelve hands are played per game.
You MUST follow suit lead if possible.
On multiple deck games, when two identical winning cards fall, the last one thrown wins trick.
One Eyed cards are: Jack of Hearts, Jack of Spades, and King of Diamonds.
Even Cards are 2,4,6,8,10,Q
If someone manages to catch all cards of interest on a round, they score zero but everyone else scores 100 points. - i.e. All Aces on round 3, or All hearts on round 6, etc. Even on the last round. This does NOT apply to single events such as LAST TRICK and single deck KING OF SPADES scoring.
The easiest way to score the last round is too call out what you want, one at a time starting with round 1: Call 'NO RED CARDS, 5 POINTS EACH', write down scores as called, then call round 2, etc. continuing to LAST TRICK then add scores. LOW SCORE WINS.

Kermitfrog, the inventor of the game, suggests a modification to the scoring to make the last deal less dominant. He writes:

"Only 50% of the points have been given at the end of rounds 1-11. That makes round 12 quite volatile on points. To dampen the wild score swings, I suggest you score round 12 at 1/5 the regular points. i.e. 1 point for reds, 2 points for hearts, 8 points for one-eyed, 15 for last trick. etc. Some poor sucker always seems to take a real beating in round 12."

Sylvia, of Nova Scotia, Canada, suggested the following alternative arrangement of decks, depending on the number of players:

3 players: one deck, remove 1 set of all clubs = 13 cards each
4 players: one deck, perfect
5 players: one deck, remove 2 of clubs & 2 of diamonds = 10 cards each
6 players: two decks remove 1 set of all clubs & 1 set of all diamonds = 13 cards each
7 players: two decks, remove 1 set of all clubs = 13 cards each
8 players: two decks - perfect

Bill Honeywell writes:

We have been playing Canadian Salad for some time now as it is the best game we have found for four, six, or eight. But we prefer different eliminations for six or the odd number of players. As the rules stand both red and even numbered cards are being eliminated. Every effort should be made to keep these in play; i.e., take out black ones, threes, and/or fives in order to get an even distribution in the deal.
We are also working on a NORTH AMERICAN SALAD which changes some and adds some contracts.

Dan Johnson has provided a Canadian Salad Score Sheet for download (PDF file)

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Last updated 15th April 2005