What Is Spades?
Spades is a partnership card game for four players. You and the player sitting across from you are a team. Before each round, every player looks at their cards and predicts how many tricks they think they can win — this prediction is called a bid. Your team’s two bids are added together to form your contract. Meet your contract and score points. Fall short and lose points. Spades are always the most powerful suit — they trump every other suit and can win any trick.
What You Need
- One standard deck of 52 playing cards
- Four players — two teams of two, with partners sitting across from each other
- Paper and pen for scoring
Understanding Tricks and Trump
A trick works the same as in Hearts: one player leads a card, everyone else plays one card each going clockwise, and the highest card of the led suit wins — unless someone played a Spade. Spades are trump, meaning they beat every other suit. If Clubs are led and you have no Clubs, you can play a Spade — and even the lowest Spade beats every Club, Diamond, and Heart. The highest Spade played wins the trick.
Setting Up the Game
- Decide partnerships. Partners sit directly across the table from each other.
- Shuffle all 52 cards and deal them all out — 13 cards to each player.
- Players pick up their cards and sort them by suit.
Bidding
Before any cards are played, every player bids. Starting with the player to the left of the dealer and going clockwise, each player looks at their hand and announces a number from 0 to 13. This number is how many tricks they believe they will personally win during the round.
Add your bid to your partner’s bid — that is your team’s contract for the round. For example, if you bid 3 and your partner bids 4, your team must win at least 7 tricks.
Special Bids
- Nil: A bid of zero. You are promising to win absolutely no tricks this round. If you succeed, your team earns a 100-point bonus. If you win even one trick, your team loses 100 points. Your partner still plays normally with their own bid.
- Blind Nil: Bid zero before looking at your cards. The bonus and penalty are both doubled to 200 points. Very risky, very rewarding.
How to Play — Step by Step
- The player to the left of the dealer leads the first card. They may play any card except a Spade — Spades cannot be led until they have been broken (see below).
- Going clockwise, each player must follow suit — play a card of the same suit as the led card — if they have one.
- If you have no cards of the led suit, you may play any card, including a Spade.
- The trick is won by the highest Spade played, or if no Spade was played, the highest card of the suit that was led.
- The player who won the trick leads the next one.
- Play continues until all 13 tricks are played.
Breaking Spades
You cannot lead a Spade until Spades have been broken — meaning until any player has played a Spade on a trick because they had no cards of the led suit. Once any Spade has been played, Spades are broken and can be led freely from that point on.
Scoring
- Made your contract: Score 10 points for each trick you bid. Bid 5 and win 5 or more = 50 points.
- Overtricks (bags): Each trick won beyond your bid scores 1 extra point. BUT every time your team accumulates 10 total overtricks, you lose 100 points. Overtricks hurt in the long run.
- Failed your contract: Lose 10 points for each trick you bid. Bid 5 and win only 4 = lose 50 points.
- Nil made: Your team gains 100 bonus points.
- Nil failed: Your team loses 100 points. Your partner’s tricks still count toward their bid.
Winning
The first team to reach 500 points wins. If both teams reach 500 in the same round, the higher score wins.
Tips for New Players
- Count your sure winners when bidding. An Ace will almost always win a trick. A King probably will. High Spades are very reliable. Count those and bid accordingly.
- Don’t accumulate bags. If you’re winning more tricks than you need, sometimes deliberately losing a trick you don’t need keeps your bag count down.
- If your partner bids Nil, help them avoid winning tricks by playing high cards in their suits to take those tricks yourself.