How to play Spades

What Spades is

Spades is a trick-taking card game for four players in two teams. Partners sit across from each other. All 52 cards are dealt, thirteen each. Before playing, every player bids how many tricks they expect to win, and each team tries to take at least as many tricks as its two bids add up to. Spades are always trumps: a spade beats any card of another suit. It is a game of judgement and of trust in your partner. Its cousin Hearts flips the aim: you avoid points.

Playing Spades on AllFun

In AllFun Spades your partner is a computer player who always plays its best, and you choose the level of your two opponents: Easy, Medium or Hard. Play a single round, or a game to 300 or 500 points. Bidding nil is on by default, and blind nil can be switched on in the options.

When it is your turn to bid, pick a number, or take the Suggest button's advice. During play, tap a card to play it; a card you cannot play explains why. A hint picks a good card when you are unsure. Play Online seats you at a table with other players, and Play a friend lets you invite people with a room code. Online, you have 25 seconds to bid and 20 seconds for each card.

The rules

Bidding

After the deal, starting with the player to the dealer's left, each player bids a number of tricks from 1 to 13, or nil (zero). The two bids of a team add up to the team's bid, also called its contract. A nil bid is not added: it is a promise that this player will take no tricks at all.

Playing the tricks

• The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. The deal moves one seat to the left every round.
• Everyone must follow suit if they can. If you cannot, you may play any card, including a spade.
• The highest spade in a trick wins it. With no spade, the highest card of the suit led wins. Aces are high.
• Spades cannot be led until a spade has been played on an earlier trick: spades are then broken. A player holding only spades may lead one anyway.

Scoring

• Make your team's bid and score 10 points per trick bid, plus 1 point for each extra trick. Extra tricks are called bags.
• Fall short and the team is set: it loses 10 points per trick bid.
• Every time a team collects 10 bags, it loses 100 points.
• A successful nil scores 100; a failed one costs 100. A blind nil, bid before looking at your cards, is worth 200 either way.

The game ends when a team reaches the target score, and the higher score wins.

Six tips for Spades

1. Count sure winners when you bid. Aces, the King of spades, and Kings with one card to protect them are your safest tricks. Add a trick for a long spade suit.
2. Bid what you can make, not what you hope for. Being set costs far more than a couple of bags.
3. Watch the bags. Once your team is past seven or eight bags, try to take exactly your bid.
4. Cover your partner's nil. When your partner bids nil, play your high cards early so they can safely play low under you.
5. Use short suits. Running out of a suit lets you trump it with a small spade. Play your short suit early to get there.
6. Track the high spades. Knowing whether the Ace, King and Queen of spades are gone tells you which of your spades are now winners.

A short history

Spades belongs to the whist family of trick-taking games, where partners work together and one suit can outrank the rest. It is a young member of that family, from the first half of the twentieth century, and its simple rule that spades are always trumps made it a favourite for long evenings of play among friends.

Spades FAQ