How to play spades
Spades is a trick-taking card game for four players in two teams of two, with partners sitting opposite each other. Each player is dealt 13 cards and bids how many tricks they expect to win, and spades always beat the other suits. Your team scores 10 points a trick if it takes at least its combined bid, loses 10 a trick if it doesn't, and the first team to 500 points wins.
What you need
Four players and one ordinary 52-card deck, no jokers. The two players sitting across from each other are partners, so play goes partner, opponent, partner, opponent around the table. Cards rank the usual way, ace high: A, K, Q, J, 10 and on down to 2.
Spades are trumps for the whole game. That never changes, which is where the name comes from.
The deal
Pick the first dealer at random (Bicycle has everyone draw a card, highest deals). The dealer shuffles and deals the whole deck one card at a time, clockwise, starting with the player on their left, so everyone gets 13. After each hand the deal passes one seat to the left.
Bidding
Starting with the player on the dealer's left and going round once, each player says how many tricks they think they'll take, from nil (zero) to 13. There's no passing, you don't have to bid higher than the last player, and you can't change a bid once it's made.
Partners' bids are added together. That total is the team's contract, and it doesn't matter which partner actually wins the tricks. Pagat gives this example:
| Player (in bidding order) | Bid |
|---|---|
| West | 3 |
| North | 1 |
| East | 4 |
| South (dealer) | 4 |
North and South need 1 + 4 = 5 tricks between them. West and East need 3 + 4 = 7.
Bids don't have to add up to 13. When they come to less, someone is going to win extra tricks. When they come to more, someone is going to fall short.
Nil
A bid of zero is called nil. It's a promise to win no tricks at all. You can't bid zero any other way, so if you don't want to try for nil you bid at least 1. Nil is scored on its own, apart from your partner's bid (see scoring below). Your partner's job changes too: they try to win the tricks your high cards might otherwise take.
Blind nil (optional)
Some groups allow blind nil: a nil bid made before you look at your cards. It's worth twice as much, 200 either way. After all the bids, the blind nil bidder may pass two cards face down to their partner, who passes two back. Pagat says it's usually only allowed for a side that's losing by 100 points or more, and that's how our game does it. In our game only one partner per side can bid blind nil. Blind nil is off unless you turn it on in Settings.
The play
- The player on the dealer's left leads to the first trick. They can lead any card except a spade.
- Going clockwise, everyone plays one card. You must follow suit: play a card of the suit that was led if you have one.
- If you have none of the suit led, you can play any card. A spade played this way is called trumping (or cutting).
- The highest spade wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. Cards of other suits never win.
- Whoever wins the trick leads the next one. Keep going until all 13 tricks are played.
Breaking spades
You can't lead a spade until spades are broken, which happens the first time someone plays a spade on a trick led in another suit (because they had none of that suit). There's one exception: if you're on lead and hold nothing but spades, you lead one. Pagat's wording is that a spade can't be led until "some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit, of course), or the leader has nothing but spades left in hand." So a spade led only because the leader had nothing else doesn't break spades for everyone else.
Scoring
At the end of each hand, each team scores like this:
| What happened | Points |
|---|---|
| Took at least your contract | 10 per trick bid |
| Each trick over the contract (a bag) | +1 each |
| Took fewer than your contract (set) | Minus 10 per trick bid |
| Nil made (no tricks) | +100 |
| Nil failed (one trick or more) | Minus 100 |
| Blind nil made, or failed | +200, or minus 200 |
| Your team's bags reach 10 | Minus 100, and the count drops by 10 |
Bags
Extra tricks (bags, or sandbags) look like free points, but they pile up. Every time a team's running total of bags reaches 10, it loses 100 points, and any bags over 10 carry into the next count. Pagat's example: a team on 337 bids 5. If it takes 7, it scores 52 and goes to 389. If it takes 8 instead, it scores 53, but those 3 bags take it to 10, so it also loses 100 and ends on 290. Taking 9 would score 54, lose 100, and leave 291 with 1 bag carried over. That's why players try not to win tricks they don't need once their bid is safe.
How nil is scored
A nil is scored separately from the partner's bid. If you bid nil and your partner bid 4, your partner's 4 is the team's contract. The nil adds 100 if you took no tricks, or costs 100 if you took any. Tricks a nil bidder does take don't count toward the partner's bid, but they do count as bags for the team.
A worked example
You (South) bid 4 and your partner (North) bids nil. West and East bid 3 each, so they need 6. Before this hand your team has 210 points and 9 bags; theirs has 180 and 3 bags.
You win 5 tricks and your partner wins none. West and East win 4 each.
| You and North | West and East | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract | 4 (North is nil) | 3 + 3 = 6 |
| Tricks toward it | 5 | 8 |
| Contract points | +40 | +60 |
| Bags | +1 | +2 |
| Nil | +100 (made) | none |
| Bag penalty | −100 (9 + 1 = 10 bags) | none (3 + 2 = 5 bags) |
| This hand | 41 | 62 |
| New score | 251, 0 bags left | 242, 5 bags |
Look at your side. One extra trick and a made nil sound like a great hand, and they were, but the bag pushed the count to 10 and cost 100. If North had won a trick instead, the nil would have cost 100, and that trick would still have been a bag. You can check any hand like this with the spades scoring calculator.
Winning
The first team to reach 500 points wins. If both teams pass 500 on the same hand, the higher score wins. Pagat's main rules don't say what happens on an exact tie (its New York variant plays more hands until one side leads). Bicycle's rules and Wikipedia both say to play one more hand, and our game does that.
Scores can go below zero. Wikipedia also counts falling to minus 200 as a loss. It's not in pagat's main rules, so it's a setting in our game, off to start with. For a shorter game, pagat lists a target of 300 instead of 500, and that's a setting too.
Words you'll hear
- Trick
- One card from each player, played in turn. The best card wins all four.
- Trump
- A spade. It beats any card of the other suits. Playing one on another suit's lead is trumping or cutting.
- Contract
- The two partners' bids added together: the tricks the team has to win.
- Set
- Falling short of your contract. You lose 10 points per trick you bid.
- Bag (sandbag)
- A trick won over your contract. Worth 1 point, but every 10 cost 100.
- Nil
- A bid of zero tricks, scored on its own: 100 points won or lost.
- Blind nil
- A nil bid made before looking at your cards: 200 won or lost, with a two-card swap with your partner.
- Breaking spades
- The first spade played on another suit's lead. After that, spades can be led.
- Covering
- Playing a high card to win a trick so your nil-bidding partner doesn't have to.
- Void
- Having no cards left in a suit, which lets you trump it.
Common variations
Spades has a lot of house rules. These are the ones our sources list; agree on them before you start.
- Jokers: pagat describes adding two jokers as the two highest spades, and gives several ways to handle the two extra cards. Some games also make the 2s high trumps.
- A minimum team bid: some play that a team must bid at least 4 between them, and that a nil bidder's partner must bid at least 4 (pagat and Wikipedia).
- No bags penalty: pagat lists games where each overtrick costs 1 point instead of scoring it, with no 10-bag penalty.
- Nil worth 50: pagat lists nil at 50 and blind nil at 100 as a variation.
- A failed bid scores nothing: Bicycle's rules score a missed bid as zero rather than a loss, and its page has no nil.
- Passing cards: pagat describes partners passing three cards to each other before bidding.
- Ten for two hundred: a team that bids 10 scores 200 if it takes them (some say exactly 10) and loses 200 if it doesn't (pagat and Wikipedia).
- A losing floor: pagat lists minus 500 as a losing score; Wikipedia mentions minus 200.
Ready to try it? Play spades online with a computer partner, or read our spades strategy guide first.
Sources
- John McLeod, "Spades", pagat.com (main rules, blind nil, scoring examples and variations).
- "Spades", Bicycle Cards, bicyclecards.com (dealing, bidding and scoring, playing one more hand on a tie).
- "Spades (card game)", Wikipedia (nil scoring, the minus 200 ending, ties, variations).
Keep playing
- Play spadesYou and a computer partner against two computer players, or with up to three friends.
- Scoring calculatorBids, bags, nil and sets explained, with a calculator for real-card games.
- StrategyHow to bid, when to go nil, and how to dodge bags, with numbers from our games.
- Hand and FootAnother partnership favorite: play your hand, pick up your foot, make your books.
- CribbageFifteen two, fifteen four: peg your way to 121 against the computer or a friend.