How to Play Spades
Deal all 52 cards to four players in two partnerships. Each seat bids how many of the thirteen tricks it expects, and partners' bids are added together. Spades are trump and cannot be led until one has been played on a void. A partnership that makes its combined bid scores ten a trick; one that misses it loses ten a trick. First side to 500 wins.
The rules, step by step
- 1Deal thirteen cards to each of four playersThe whole 52-card deck is dealt out. Seats opposite each other are partners, so the table is two partnerships facing one another.
- 2Bid the tricks you expectStarting to the dealer's left, each seat names a number from 0 to 13, or bids nil. Your bid and your partner's are added into one partnership contract.
- 3Follow suit, and know that spades are trumpThe player left of the dealer leads. Follow the led suit if you hold it. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick unless somebody plays a spade, in which case the highest spade wins.
- 4Do not lead a spade until they are brokenSpades can only be led once one has been played on a trick somebody could not follow — or by a player whose remaining hand is nothing but spades.
- 5Score the handMake the partnership bid for ten points a trick, plus one for each overtrick. Miss it and lose ten a trick instead, with the tricks you did win counting for nothing.
- 6Charge the bagsOvertricks accumulate as bags. Every ten of them cost your side a hundred points, which is more than two made four-bids are worth, and the counter carries the remainder forward.
- 7Play to 500Deal again, rotating the dealer, until a partnership passes 500 points. If both sides pass it in the same hand the higher score wins; a dead tie plays another hand.
Try it — the rules above, running
Bidding. Each seat says how many tricks it expects.
West is deciding.
Bid first: say how many of the thirteen tricks you expect, or bid nil for none at all. Your bid and North’s are added together, and your side has to make the total. Then tap a card — only the legal ones are enabled, so the board never lets you revoke. Spades are trump and cannot be led until one has been played on a void. The three-dot menu holds the scoring, the nil rules and the keyboard shortcuts.
Your statistics
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- Best streak
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- Best time
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A game counts as a win when your partnership is the side in front once someone passes 500. Best score is the highest total you have finished a game on. Kept in this browser only.
Keyboard
- Tab
- Move through your hand, or the bid pad
- Enter
- Play the card, or place the bid, you are on
- 0 – 9
- Bid that many tricks, while bidding
- V
- Bid nil, while bidding
- H
- Hint — the card a computer seat would play
- N
- New game
- F
- Full screen
What order does a hand of spades happen in?
- 1Deal and sortThirteen cards each. Put your spades together at one end of the hand — they are trump all game, and how many you hold is the first thing your bid depends on.
- 2Count your tricksCount the ace of spades as one, a guarded king of spades as one, every spade past the fourth as one, and each side-suit ace as one. Add halves for the fourth spade, a side-suit king with a card behind it, and a singleton you can ruff from.
- 3Bid, starting left of the dealerSay a number from 0 to 13, or say nil. You cannot change it, and it is added to your partner's, so a bid you cannot make is your partner's problem too.
- 4Play thirteen tricksLeft of the dealer leads. Follow suit when you can. Any spade beats anything that is not a spade, and the highest spade wins when more than one is played.
- 5Score, then charge the bagsTen a trick if the partnership made its total, minus ten a trick if it did not. Overtricks are worth a point each and count as bags, and every tenth bag costs a hundred.
When exactly can you lead a spade?
Spades are broken the first time one is played by a player who could not follow the suit that was led. Until that moment, nobody may lead a spade — you must open with a heart, a diamond or a club. Discarding a spade on a suit you are void in is the usual way it happens, and leading one after that is legal for everybody.
- You may always play a spade when you are void in the led suit — that is what breaks them.
- You may never lead a spade before they are broken, whatever is in your hand.
- Except when your hand is nothing but spades, in which case you may lead one. The hand has to be finishable.
- Breaking spades yourself is not a foul or a penalty. It is often simply the only legal card you hold.
How does nil actually work?
A nil bidder promises to take none of the thirteen tricks. Their contract counts as zero toward the partnership total, so their partner is carrying the whole contract. Surviving is worth a hundred to the side; taking even one trick costs a hundred. The bid is made on shape, not on strength: you want a hand with no card anybody can force you to win.
The technique is the same at both ends of the table. As the nil bidder, throw your biggest already-beaten card at every opportunity — if a card on the table is higher than yours, yours cannot win the trick no matter what the players behind you do, so the ace goes now rather than being on your lead three tricks from the end. As the partner, take tricks early and overtake the nil bidder whenever they are winning one.
What do tables disagree about?
Two things, and it is worth agreeing before you start. The first is what happens to tricks a failed nil bidder won: some tables count them toward the partner's contract, some treat them as if they never happened. This board counts them, which is the commoner rule and the one that makes covering a nil worth doing.
The second is the blind-nil card exchange — a house rule where a blind nil bidder passes two cards to their partner and gets two back, so the partnership can move the dangerous cards. It is common but not universal, and it is not used here: a blind nil on this board is played with the hand as dealt. Everything else — ten a trick, ten bags for a hundred, spades trump, no leading them until broken — is the standard game.
How do you win more often?
- Count trumps and side suits with different rulersThe ace of spades is a whole trick and a side-suit king is about half of one, because a king in a side suit gets ruffed and a trump cannot be. Counting every honour as a trick is how a four-bid becomes a set.
- Bid the fourth spade as a half and the fifth as a wholeLength in trumps is worth more than rank once the suit is exhausted everywhere else. Only 17.6% of hands hold five or more spades, so when you get one, the extra tricks are real and you should bid them.
- Duck the moment your side's contract is safeOnce the partnership has the tricks it bid, every further trick is a bag, and ten bags cost a hundred — more than two made four-bids. Throwing a high card under somebody else's is not a waste, it is the point.
- Cover your partner's nil by taking tricks, not by hidingA nil bidder cannot duck a trick where they hold the only card left in a suit, so the partner's job is to win tricks before it gets there and to lead top cards so the nil has somewhere to throw an ace. Overtake your own partner if they are winning: a nil sitting on a trick is a hundred points lost.
- Lead low against an opponent's nilA two cannot be ducked under. Winning a trick cheaply against a nil is the wrong move, because it puts a small card on top and lets them slip beneath it — leave the trick small and force them into it.
- Do not bid nil with a high spade or a bare aceThose are the two cards that can be forced on you: a trump you are made to win has nothing to go under it, and a bare side-suit ace gets led at with nowhere to go. A long run of low cards is what makes a nil safe.
Common questions about spades
- Does the bidding have to add up to thirteen in spades?
- No, and that is the difference from bridge. All four bids are independent promises, so the table can promise nine tricks or seventeen. The computer seats here bid 11.6 of the thirteen between them on average, which leaves a little slack for the bags.
- How many hands does a game of spades take?
- Just under eleven at this table, playing to 500. A made hand here is worth 57 points on average and a set takes 70 away, while the bag rule quietly hands a hundred back roughly every twelve hands — which is why a side that bids low and coasts does not actually get there faster.
- What beats the ace of spades?
- Nothing. Spades are trump and the ace is the highest card in the suit, so it wins any trick it is played to. It is also the single most valuable card to hold for bidding purposes, and it makes a nil bid almost impossible.
- Can both partners bid nil in the same hand?
- At most tables yes, and it is very rarely right: the partnership contract becomes zero, so every trick either of you takes is a bag, and you are risking two hundred points on two hands at once. The computer seats here never bid nil opposite a partner who already has.
Ready to stop reading? Play spades on the full board, with controls and statistics tailored to that game.