What you need
Spades is played by four players in two teams, partners sitting across the table from each other, with one ordinary pack of 52 cards and no jokers. Aces are high, so every suit runs 2, 3, 4 up to 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. On this site you are south, your partner is North, and you play against West and East, all three played by the computer, so a game is always ready.
The goal
Every hand, each team promises a number of tricks, then tries to take at least that many, but not too many more. A team that keeps its promise scores; a team that falls short loses points. The first team to reach 500 points wins the game.
The deal
The dealer deals all 52 cards, one at a time, so everyone has 13. The deal passes to the left after every hand. On this site your cards are sorted for you: spades first, then hearts, clubs and diamonds, high to low.
Bidding
Before any card is played, each player in turn, starting on the dealer’s left, bids the number of tricks they expect to take, from 1 to 13. Everyone bids once. Your bid and your partner’s are added together, and that total is your side’s contract: the tricks the two of you must take between you. It does not matter which of you takes them.
To count your tricks, look at your high cards and your spades. Each Ace usually takes a trick, and so does a King with a low card beside it. High spades are worth more, because a spade can win a trick in any suit. Long spades help too: with five or six spades, the last ones are likely to win once everyone else runs out. And a suit you hold none of lets you trump it with a spade.
Nil
A player may instead bid nil: a promise to take no tricks at all. A nil is scored on its own, 100 points if that player takes no trick and minus 100 if they take even one. Their partner’s bid stands as the team’s contract, and any tricks the nil bidder is forced to take still count toward it. Nil suits a hand full of low cards, with no Aces and few spades. When your partner bids nil, your job changes: take the tricks they might otherwise be forced to win.
Playing the tricks
The player on the dealer’s left leads the first trick. Play goes round the table to the left, each player adding one card:
- Follow suit if you can. If you hold a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
- If you cannot follow, play any card. You may play a spade to win the trick, or throw away a card you do not need.
- Spades are always trump. The highest spade played wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.
- Breaking spades. Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, by someone who could not follow suit, unless they hold nothing but spades.
The winner of each trick leads the next.
Scoring
When all 13 tricks have been played, each team counts the tricks the two partners took together:
| Your side | Points |
|---|---|
| Takes at least its contract | 10 for each trick bid, plus 1 for each extra trick |
| Takes fewer tricks than its contract (set) | minus 10 for each trick bid |
| A nil bidder takes no trick | plus 100 |
| A nil bidder takes a trick | minus 100 |
| Reaches 10 bags | minus 100, and the count starts again |
For example, you bid 4 and North bids 3, a contract of 7. If the two of you take 8 tricks, your side scores 70 plus 1, and has 1 bag. If you take only 6, you lose 70.
Bags
Each trick over your contract is worth only 1 point, and it is called a bag (or sandbag). Bags are kept from hand to hand, and every time your side collects 10 of them, you lose 100 points. So bidding low to be safe has a cost too. Once your side has made its contract, it often pays to stop winning tricks and let the other side take them. On this site the bags each side carries are shown at the top of the table.
Winning the game
The game ends after the hand in which a team reaches 500 points, and the higher score wins. A team that falls to minus 200 loses at once. If both teams finish level, another hand is played.
Tips to win more games
- Count Aces and spades when you bid. Side Aces, the Ace and King of spades, and every spade past your third are the tricks to count. Kings without a low card beside them often lose to the Ace.
- Lead your winners early. An Ace of a side suit is safest before anyone has run out of that suit and can trump it.
- Draw spades when you hold the top ones. Leading the Ace and King of spades takes two spades from the other side, so they cannot trump your winners.
- Do not trump your partner’s winning card. If North’s Ace is winning the trick, throw away a low card and keep your spades.
- Empty a short suit. Once you hold no cards of a suit, you can trump it whenever it is led.
- Mind the bags. When your side has made its bid and the other side has made theirs, play low and let the extra tricks go.
- Protect a nil. If your partner bids nil, play high on the tricks they might win, and lead suits where you hold the top cards.
Other ways people play
Spades has many house rules. Some tables play to 300 or 250 points, or let the 2 of clubs lead the first trick. A blind nil, bid before looking at your cards, is worth 200. Some games add the two jokers as the highest spades, and some give a bonus for bidding 10 or more tricks. This site plays the common rules described above: no jokers, nil worth 100, bags at 10, and a game to 500.
Where Spades comes from
Spades belongs to the Whist family of trick-taking games, like Bridge. It is thought to have been invented in the United States in the 1930s, and it spread widely during the Second World War, when soldiers played it to pass the time. It stayed popular at home, on college campuses and online, where it has been among the most played card games since the early days of internet gaming.