How to play Spades?

Table of Contents

The Players
The Pack
The Objective
The Deal
The Bid
The Play
The Score

What is the game of Spades? 

Spades is a popular trick-taking card game that requires skill in bidding, card play, teamwork, and strategy. However, there is an element of luck in the initial card distribution and the order in which cards are played, as well as in how opponents' cards are distributed. Skilled players can consistently perform well over the long run, but individual hands and games can still be influenced by luck.

Spades is a four-player game where players are split into two teams.  Each player is dealt 13 cards and places a bid on how many tricks they predict they will win. To win a trick, a player must play the highest-ranking card of the leading suit, or, since Spades are the trump suit, the player must have played the highest ranking Spade.

Partners sit opposite each other and work together to collect the number of tricks bid.

The Players

Spades is a four-player card game.

The Pack

Spades is played with 1 deck of cards.  Each deck has 52-cards, 2 through Ace of each suit.

The Objective

What is the object of the card game Spades? Spades is a trick-taking game. The object of the game is to accumulate the most points.  Players bid the number of tricks they expect to win. Each player partners with the player across from them, forming a team.  Teams earn points by achieving their combined bid and minimize penalties by doing so as accurately as possible. 

The Deal

Players each draw a card and the player who draws the highest card is the dealer.

The dealer deals the cards one at a time, face down, clockwise. To start, each player receives 13 cards.

The Bid

Each player bids the number of tricks they believe they will win. Ace is high and Spade is always the trump suit.  Bidding starts to the dealer’s left and continues clockwise until all players have bid once.  Players cannot update their bid once it is made.

Players bid individually but work together with their partner to achieve the sum of both bids.   For example, Player A bids 2 tricks, and Player C bids 3 tricks.  Together, Player A and Player C need to win 5 tricks. 

A player may bid Nil, meaning 0 tricks.  If a player who bid Nil does not win any tricks, the player receives 100 points.  However, if the player wins tricks after bidding Nil, the player loses 100 points.

The Play

A trick is the set of four cards, one from each player.  The first card played for each trick is called the lead card.  The player on the dealer's left plays a lead card, and players must follow suit, if possible. If a player cannot follow suit, they may play a Spade as a trump card or discard a card of another suit.  

A player cannot play a Spade as the lead card until a Spade has been played on another suit or if that is the only suit in hand.

The trick is won by the player who plays the highest Spade or if no Spade was played, the highest card in the lead suit. The winner takes the trick and leads the next. Play continues until players are out of cards. 

The Score

The game is scored by hands.  At the end of each hand, players count the number of tricks taken.

If a team makes or exceeds their combined bid, they are awarded 10 points per bid. For example, Team 1 is Player A and Player C.  Player A bid 2 tricks and Player C bid 3 tricks.  Team 1 took 5 tricks combined and received 50 points for 5 tricks bid.

If Team 1 had exceeded the combined bid, each extra trick is worth a single point. For example, if Team 1 bid 5 tricks but took 7, the score would be 52.  50 points for the 5 tricks bid and 2 points for the extra tricks. These single points are referred to as bags.

For every 10 bags a team collects in the game, a penalty of 100 points is subtracted from their score. 

If a team does not win the tricks bid, the team has a score of 0 for that hand. 

If a player who bid Nil achieves their bid, their team receives 100 points.

If a player who bid Nil takes one or more tricks, the team loses 100 points.

If one player on a team bids Nil, the partner can only count the tricks that player wins.  For example, Player A bids Nil and Player C bids 4. Player A wins 2 tricks and Player C wins 3.  The team would lose 100 points for the failed Nil bid and would receive 0 points for Player C.

Games are played to 500 points and the team with the highest score wins.