Spades

Bidding

Each player bids in turn and the two partners’ bids add up to the team’s contract. If you bid four and your partner bids three, the team must win at least seven tricks.

• Count your aces and kings in the side suits; each is usually a trick.
• Count your high spades; the ace, king and queen of spades are near-certain tricks.
• Add roughly one trick for every two low spades, since they win once the side suits are exhausted.
• Subtract for kings with no protection and for long suits you cannot control.

A bid of zero is called nil and is scored separately. A player who bids nil undertakes to win no tricks at all, which is worth a hundred points if successful and costs a hundred if not. The partner still bids normally and plays to protect the nil, usually by taking tricks the nil bidder cannot avoid otherwise.

Order of play

1. Deal thirteen cards eachFour players in two partnerships, sitting so that partners face each other across the table. The whole deck is dealt out.
2. Every player bidsStarting left of the dealer, each player announces how many tricks they expect to win. Partners’ bids are added together to form the team contract.
3. The player left of the dealer leadsAny card except a spade may be led at the start, because spades have not yet been broken.
4. Follow suit if you canEach player plays one card and must follow the suit led. A player with no card of that suit may play anything, including a spade.
5. The highest spade wins, otherwise the highest card of the suit ledSpades are permanent trumps. The winner of the trick leads the next one.
6. Score the hand against the contractA team that makes its combined bid scores ten points per trick bid. A team that falls short loses ten points per trick bid.

Scoring

Games are normally played to 500 points. Because a failed contract swings the score twice — you lose what you would have gained — conservative bidding wins more games than ambitious bidding, right up until the bag penalty arrives.

Breaking spades

A spade may not be led until spades have been broken, which happens the first time someone plays a spade on a trick because they could not follow suit. The exception is a player whose hand contains nothing but spades, who may lead one.

This rule shapes the first few tricks. Players lead their side suits early, trying to make their aces and kings count before an opponent runs out of that suit and trumps in. Once spades are broken, control of the hand belongs to whoever still holds high trumps.

Rules that catch people out

• Table talk is forbidden. You may not tell your partner what you hold or what to lead. Everything must be communicated by the cards you play.
• Bags are cumulative. They carry from hand to hand and the hundred-point penalty arrives without warning for a team that keeps overshooting.
• Sandbagging deliberately is still punished. Winning extra tricks to deny them to the opposition costs bags all the same.
• Nil needs a plan. Discarding your high cards early and letting your partner take the lead is the only way to avoid being thrown into a trick late.
• Blind nil. Some house rules allow a bid of nil before looking at your cards, worth 200 points. It is usually reserved for a team far behind.

Terminology

Trick

One card from each player; the highest spade, or the highest card of the suit led, takes it.

Trump

A suit that beats all others. In Spades it is always spades.

Contract

The combined number of tricks a partnership has bid.

Bag

A trick won above the contract, worth one point now and a hundred-point penalty for every ten.

Nil

A bid of zero tricks, worth 100 points if kept and −100 if broken.

Blind nil

A nil bid made before looking at your hand, usually worth 200 points.

Cutting

Playing a trump when you cannot follow the suit led.

The trick-taking vocabulary is shared with Hearts and listed in full in the Card Game Glossary.