Spades rules

Spades

Four players sit in two partnerships, with partners opposite one another. Each hand has thirteen tricks. Spades are always trump, and your team tries to take at least the number of tricks it bids.

Deal and bid

Deal all 52 cards, thirteen to each player. Each player bids how many tricks they expect to win, from zero to thirteen. Partners' ordinary bids add together to form the team target. A bid of zero is nil: you aim to take no tricks, while your partner still tries to make the team's ordinary bid. At the start of bidding, choose blind nil while your hand is hidden, or reveal your hand and make a regular bid. Once you reveal your hand, blind nil is no longer available that round.

Playing a trick

The leader plays a card, then the others play clockwise. You must follow the led suit if you can. If you cannot, you may discard or play a spade. The highest spade wins if any spade was played; otherwise the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner leads the next trick. You cannot lead a spade until a spade has been played to another suit, unless your hand contains only spades.

Scoring a hand

If your partnership makes its combined ordinary bid, it scores ten points per bid trick and one point for every extra trick. Extra tricks are bags; each time your team accumulates ten bags, it loses 100 points. If the team misses its bid, it loses ten points per bid trick. A successful nil adds 100 points and a failed nil subtracts 100; blind nil uses 200 instead. The partnership score combines the ordinary bid result and any nil result.

When creating the table, choose how failed-nil tricks count. The default is bags only: those tricks score one point and add one bag each, but do not help the partnership reach its ordinary bid. The alternative counts those tricks toward the partnership bid; only tricks beyond that target become bags. The table shows which rule applies.

Play fresh hands until a partnership reaches 500 points. The team with the higher score wins. If both teams are tied, play another hand. The score and bag totals are shown after each hand, so you can decide whether to chase a trick or avoid one.