How to Play Spades

Spades is the great American partnership card game. It has been a favorite in college dorms, on military bases, at family reunions and around kitchen tables for generations. You and your partner bid how many tricks you'll take, then try to take exactly that many. The rules fit on one page, but the game keeps you thinking for years.

These are the Spades card game rules our free online Spades game uses. Where families often play a little differently, we say so, and the rule variations page covers those house rules in more detail.

What You Need

• A standard deck of 52 cards, no jokers.
• Four players in two teams of two. Partners sit across from each other.
• Paper and pencil for the score. (Online, the score sheet keeps track for you.)

In our online game you sit at the bottom of the table as South. Your partner is North, a computer player sitting across from you. Your opponents are West and East, also played by the computer.

The Cards and Trump

Cards rank from high to low: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Aces are always high.

Spades are always trump. That's where the game gets its name. A spade beats any heart, diamond or club, no matter how high. The lowly 2 of spades beats the ace of hearts.

The Deal

The dealer shuffles and deals all 52 cards, one at a time, so each player has 13 cards. The deal moves one seat to the left after every hand. Bidding and play also go clockwise, to the left. At our table that means the order is you, then West, then North, then East.

How to Bid in Spades

After looking at their cards, each player bids once, starting with the player to the dealer's left. Your bid is the number of tricks you think you can take, from 0 to 13. You may also bid Nil, which is explained below.

Your bid and your partner's bid are added together. That total is your team's contract. It doesn't matter which partner takes the tricks, as long as the team takes enough between them.

Counting Your Tricks

The simplest way to bid is to count the cards that will almost surely win a trick:

• Aces. Count one trick for each ace. (An ace in a suit where you hold six or more cards is less safe, because someone else may run out of that suit and trump it.)
• Kings with company. Count one trick for a king that has at least one other card of its suit with it. A king all alone usually falls to the ace.
• Long spades. Count your high spades, and then add one more trick for each spade over four. Five spades are worth one extra trick, six are worth two.

Queens and singletons (a suit with just one card) may win a trick, but don't count on them. It's better to bid a little conservatively and let your partner make up the difference.

In our game: the bidding panel shows big number buttons from 0 to 13, a Nil button and a suggested bid. The hint reminds you how to count: aces, kings with company, and long spades.

A Bidding Example

East is the dealer, so you bid first. Your hand is:

• Spades: A, Q, 9, 7, 5, 3
• Hearts: A, 8, 4
• Diamonds: K, 6
• Clubs: 9, 2

Count it up:

• Ace of hearts: 1
• King of diamonds, with the 6 for company: 1
• Ace of spades: 1
• Six spades is two more than four: 2

That's 5 tricks, so you bid 5. West bids 3. North, your partner, bids 3. East bids 2. Your team's contract is 5 + 3 = 8 tricks. The opponents' contract is 3 + 2 = 5 tricks. Together the bids add up to 13, so it will be a tight hand: every trick matters.

The Nil Bid in Spades

A Spades Nil bid is a promise to take no tricks at all during the hand. It's a bold bid with a big reward:

• If the Nil bidder takes no tricks, their team scores +100.
• If the Nil bidder takes even one trick, their team loses 100.

The Nil score is separate from the partner's bid. The partner still has to make their own bid, and the Nil bidder's tricks never count toward it. Any tricks a failed Nil bidder does take count as bags (extra tricks) for the team.

Nil works best with a hand full of low cards, few or no high spades, and short suits. Your partner will help by playing high cards so yours can slip underneath. Our Spades strategy guide explains when to bid Nil and how to cover a partner's Nil.

Blind Nil: some tables allow a Nil bid made before looking at your cards, worth 200 points. Our game offers it as a house rule, only for a team that is behind by 100 or more. See Blind Nil.

Playing the Tricks

The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. They may lead any card except a spade. Then each player in turn, clockwise, plays one card. The four cards together make a trick.

• Follow suit. You must play a card of the suit that was led if you have one.
• If you can't follow suit, you may play any card. Playing a spade is called trumping. Playing any other suit is a discard, and it can't win.
• Who wins. If any spades were played, the highest spade wins the trick. If not, the highest card of the suit that was led wins.
• The winner of each trick leads the next one.

Breaking Spades

Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, usually by someone trumping. Once that happens, spades are "broken" and may be led at any time. The one exception: if the leader has nothing but spades left, they may lead one.

A Sample Trick

West leads the king of hearts. Play goes clockwise:

1. West plays the K♥.
2. North (your partner) has hearts and must follow suit: 3♥.
3. East has no hearts left, so East may play anything. East trumps with the 4♠.
4. You play the A♥.

Your ace is the highest heart, but it doesn't matter: a spade was played, so East's little 4♠ wins the trick. East leads next, and since a spade has now been played, spades are broken. If you had also been out of hearts, you could have played a higher spade to win it back.

Scoring

After all 13 tricks, each team counts the tricks it took and compares that number with its contract.

Bags

Extra tricks are called bags (some people say sandbags). A bag is worth one point, but bags carry over from hand to hand, and every time your team piles up 10 bags, you lose 100 points. That's why Spades rewards bidding accurately: underbidding gives away points in the long run.

A Full Scoring Example

Take the hand from the bidding example. Your team bid 8; the opponents bid 5. Your team takes 9 tricks; the opponents take 4.

• Your team made its bid of 8 with one trick to spare: 8 × 10 = 80, plus 1 bag = 81 points.
• The opponents needed 5 but took only 4. They are set: 5 × 10 = −50 points.

Now suppose your team already had 9 bags on the score sheet. That one new bag brings it to 10, so your team also loses 100 points. Your hand score becomes 81 − 100 = −19, and the bag count drops back by 10.

Here's a second hand with a Nil. You bid Nil. North bids 4. The opponents bid 4 and 3, a contract of 7.

• You take no tricks. North takes 5. Your team scores 4 × 10 = 40, plus 1 bag, plus 100 for the Nil: 141 points.
• The opponents take the other 8 tricks: 7 × 10 = 70, plus 1 bag = 71 points.

What if you had been caught with one trick? Then North takes 5 and you take 1. North's bid of 4 is still made (40 points), North's extra trick and your trick are both bags (+2), and the failed Nil costs 100. Your team scores 40 + 2 − 100 = −58 points. The opponents take 7 tricks, exactly their bid, for 70.

Winning the Game

Keep playing hands and adding up the scores. The first team to reach 500 points wins. If both teams pass 500 on the same hand, the higher score wins; if they're tied, play another hand. A team that sinks to −200 or lower loses the game right away.

In our game: you can play to 300 for a shorter game, and you can turn off the −200 rule, the bag penalty, Nil or the breaking-spades rule under Settings → House rules.

Helpful Features in Our Game

• A helpful partner. North won't take a trick you're already winning, and plays high cards to cover you when you bid Nil.
• Hint and Why? Ask for a suggested card, or tap Why? to see the reason behind a computer player's choice.
• Fair computer players. Easy, Normal and Hard players never see your cards. After each hand, Show All Hands lets you see what everyone held.
• Deal numbers. Every deal has a number. Replay This Deal to try the same cards again.
• Score sheet. Every hand's bids, tricks, points and bags are listed for you.

If you enjoy trick-taking games but would rather play every player for themselves, try Hearts, where the goal is to avoid winning certain cards instead of bidding for tricks.