then continues with the lead from the hand that won the last trick. Alternatively, the game can be played as per three-handed but with a "dead hand". An alternative version is played with the standard 52 card deck. Each player is dealt ten cards and then 8 more cards are exposed on the table. Each player chooses one of these cards to be added to the kitty. No dummies are used and the bidding is standard. After the bid is won the defending player adds one of the remaining exposed cards to their hand and discards an unwanted card. The remaining exposed cards are added to the dead card pile. One additional variant is to use a standard game deck of 45 (or 43) cards and have players alternate in drawing cards from the central deck. The kitty is set aside in advance, and in turn, players draw a card, choose to keep or discard it, and then either discard or keep the next card, taking the opposite action as with the previous card. Three-handed 500 Three-handed 500 is played with a deck of 33 cards (a joker plus a "Piquet pack", i.e. 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s removed from the standard 52 cards). Dealing, scoring and game play are as for the standard game. The common variant is in bidding, where misère may be bid before a bid for seven tricks. This variant is permitted due to the relative rarity of seven-trick bids outside of team play. Open misère may be bid in a similar fashion. Alternatively, the game may be played with the standard deck (45 or 43 cards) with one hand dealt face down, which remains untouched during the game (a so-called "dead hand"). The common strategy is that the two players who are unsuccessful in bidding form a temporary alliance in an attempt to force the other player to lose their bid. Five-handed 500 Another variation allows five players to play. All of the cards in a deck are used (although only one joker) so that each player can be dealt ten cards. The bidding starts to the dealer's left, and works by the same system as normal 500. The player who wins the bidding may then choose to "go it alone" (go on his/her own – without a partner for this hand) or gets to choose a card (the joker cannot be chosen) to