Spades

How to play

1. How do you start a game of Spades?: Tap Deal and 52 cards are dealt one at a time, 13 to each player. You sit at the bottom; North, across the table, is your partner, and West and East are the other team. The default target is a quick 250 (standard 500 is one tap away), and the default level is Easy. Tap the table during the deal to skip it.
2. How does bidding work in Spades?: Starting left of the dealer, each player bids once: how many tricks (books) they expect to win this hand, from 0 to 13. A bid of 0 is Nil — a promise to win no tricks at all. You and North add your bids to make the team contract. The key marked Tip is the suggested bid for your hand, with a line underneath naming the cards behind it, such as "♠A ♥A sure winners" or "void in clubs, can trump".
3. How do you play a trick in Spades?: The leader plays a card and the others follow clockwise. You must follow the suit led if you can; if you can't, you may discard or trump with a spade. Spades are always trump: the highest spade wins the trick, otherwise the highest card of the suit led. The winner collects the four cards and leads next. Cards you can't play are dimmed, and tapping one tells you why. Tap a bright card to lift it, then tap it again or press Play.
4. How is Spades scored and when does it end?: Thirteen tricks make a hand. Make your contract for 10 points per trick bid, miss it and lose that much. Every overtrick is +1 and a bag; ten bags cost 100 points. A successful Nil is +100, a failed one −100. The game ends when a team reaches the target or drops to −200, and the higher score wins. The game saves itself in your browser, so you can close the page and pick up where you left off.

Rules & variants

Spades basics: one 52-card deck without jokers, four players in two partnerships, partners sitting across from each other. Here you team up with North against West and East, all three played by the computer. Each hand deals 13 cards to everyone; play goes clockwise, one card each per trick, 13 tricks per hand. Aces are high, twos are low, and spades are always trump.

Bidding in Spades: before play, each player — starting left of the dealer — bids once how many tricks they will win, from 0 to 13, and can't change it. Partners' bids add up to the team contract. A bid of 0 is Nil: winning no tricks at all, scored on its own and not part of the contract. There is no minimum bid, and the four bids don't have to add up to 13. The deal rotates clockwise each hand; in the first hand you bid first and lead first.

Playing a trick: you must follow the suit led if you can. If you can't, play anything — including a spade to trump. If any spade is played, the highest spade wins; otherwise the highest card of the suit led wins, and off-suit discards never win however high they are. Breaking spades: you may not lead a spade until a spade has been played in that hand (by trumping or discarding), unless your hand holds nothing but spades.

Spades scoring, six fixed lines per team per hand: ① contract — make it for 10 × the bid, miss it for −10 × the bid; ② bags — +1 per overtrick; ③ Nil — +100 made, −100 set, doubled to ±200 for blind Nil; ④ bag penalty — overtricks are banked, and every 10 banked bags cost 100 with the remainder kept; ⑤ hand total; ⑥ running total. House rule here: tricks won by a Nil bidder never count toward the partner's bid — each of them is a bag.

A scoring example: you bid 4 and North bids 3, a contract of 7. You win 5 tricks and North wins 3, eight in all: +70 for making the contract plus 1 bag, +71 for the hand. West bids 2 and East 3 for a contract of 5, and they take exactly 5: +50. Nobody has reached 250 or fallen to −200, so the next hand is dealt and the deal passes to you.

Nil and blind Nil: bidding Nil bets that you'll take no tricks — +100 if you pull it off, −100 the moment you win one, and every trick you take is a bag. When your partner bids Nil, your job is to cover: play over the cards that might force them to win. Blind Nil is offered only when your team trails by 100 or more — you bid Nil before looking at your cards, for +200 or −200. It is off by default; switch it on in settings for the next game.

How many players and how long: Spades is always four players in two teams, and the deck deals out exactly. Here it's you plus three computers; the computers see only their own hand and what's public on the table, never your cards, and their decisions involve no randomness — the same game code played the same way gives the same game. A quick 250 game usually runs 5–6 hands, about ten minutes; 500 takes roughly twice as long. Still tied after 30 hands is a draw.

Spades strategy: bid by counting sure tricks — aces, kings with two to five cards behind them, high cards in long spades, plus chances to trump in a short suit. Once your contract is safe, start ducking, because every extra trick is a bag and ten bags cost 100. When your partner bids Nil, play high to protect them; when an opponent bids Nil, lead low to force them to win. Before spades are broken, lead from your longest side suit to draw out the opponents' high cards.

FAQ