How to play Spades
A partnership trick-taking game: bid how many tricks your team will win, then make your bid with spades as permanent trumps.
By admin
Updated
- Players
- 4
- You need
- A deck of cards and Pen & paper
- Game length
- 45–90 min
- Difficulty
- Takes some practice
- Ages
- 10+
01 — Goal
Win the tricks your team bid
Two teams of two, partners sitting opposite each other. Each hand, your team promises a number of tricks and tries to win at least that many. The first team to 500 points wins.
02 — Setup
Deal 13 cards each
Use a standard 52-card deck. Deal the whole deck, one card at a time, so everyone holds 13. Aces are high, 2s are low. Spades are always trumps.
03 — Bidding
Everyone bids once
Starting left of the dealer, each player says how many tricks they expect to win, from 0 to 13. Partners add their bids together: that is the team’s contract. A bid of zero is nil: you promise to win no tricks at all.
04 — Play
Follow suit, spades trump
- The player left of the dealer leads the first trick with any card except a spade.
- Everyone must follow the suit led if they can. If you can’t, play any card, including a spade.
- The highest spade wins the trick; with no spade played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads next.
- Spades can’t be led until they are broken: someone has trumped with a spade, or the leader holds only spades.
- 2 of spades
- Ace of hearts
05 — Scoring
Make your contract
Making your contract scores 10 points per trick bid. Each extra trick is a bag worth 1 point, but every 10 bags cost your team 100 points. Falling short loses 10 points per trick bid.
06 — Scoring
Who gets what
- Contract made
- 10 points per trick bid, +1 per extra trick (bag).
- Contract missed
- Minus 10 points per trick bid.
- Nil made / missed
- +100 / −100 for that player’s team.
- 10 bags
- Minus 100 points.
07 — Tips
Play smarter
- Count spades as they fall: there are 13, and knowing when the last one is gone wins tricks.
- Bid a little low rather than high. Missing a contract costs far more than a bag.
- Protect a partner who bid nil by winning tricks they might be forced to take.