variations These are options that may be agreed upon amongst players at the outset, or regional variations of the usually-assumed rules. 6-trick bids are considered inkles, raising the minimum bid to 7. If a team bids 8 or less, but takes all 10 tricks, they can receive 250 points; known as a "slam". A variation (common in Australia) is to require a team to win the game by scoring at least 500 points through winning bids, which means that any team surpassing 500 points solely with tricks has not yet won the game; the game would continue until a team wins through winning a bid. The game can be played with the removal of the trick points, thus only winning bids score points. If two or more teams pass 500 points on the same hand, a non-standard variation is to give the game to the one with the highest points. A team whose score dips below −500 points loses the game only if the other team is not in the negative. In an unrestricted bidding game, there are no limitations on which hands can be called when, such as only allowing a Misère call after a bid of 7 has already been made. Instead, each subsequent player need only be able to outbid the current highest bid (or pass). Some informal games allow the bidder to lay down several cards at once when they know they will win the tricks, but some rules penalise such actions with 100 points. According to the rules supplied with most Australian 500-specific playing card decks, 6 is scored as 40 points, 6 as 60 points, increasing by 20 points each bid in this fashion to 120 points for 6NT all the way through to 520 points for 10NT. However, Open Misère, also scoring 520 points, is ranked as the highest bid. Additionally, Misère is deemed to outrank a 7 bid but not an 8 bid. Split the colours In this scoring variation Misère outbids 7/7, but not 7/7; Open Misère outbids 8/8, but not 8/8; Hi/Lo outbids 9/9, but not 9/9; and Double Misère outbids 10/10, but not 10/10 (shown in table below). Strategy Bidding Bids are typically made with the consideration that one will be receiving cards from the kitty and playing with a partner (except for misère and open misère) who hopefully will also be able to win a certain number of