Spades

What you need

Four players in two partnerships, partners facing each other, and one standard 52-card deck. Spades are trump in every hand, which is where the name comes from. In each suit the cards rank ace, king, queen, jack, ten, and on down to the two. Deal and play go to the left. You play hand after hand, and the game ends when a team reaches 500 points.

Spades started in the United States in the 1930s and went around the world in the 1990s through online card rooms. It needs nothing but a deck, a pencil and a scrap of paper.

The deal

Pick the first dealer any way you like. The dealer shuffles and deals the whole deck one card at a time, starting with the player on the left, until everyone holds 13 cards. The deal passes to the left after each hand.

Some tables let a player with a hopeless hand call for a new deal: no spades, a single spade, no face cards, or seven or more cards of one suit. The call has to come before the player's partner has said anything about their own hand. This page plays every deal as it comes, and the misdeal rule is one to settle before you start.

Bidding

Spades has no auction. Starting with the player to the dealer's left and going around once, each player names the number of tricks they expect to win. Nobody passes, nobody has to beat the bid before them, and a bid cannot be changed once it is spoken.

Partners add their two numbers together, and the total is the contract: the number of tricks the partnership must win to score. A bid of 4 across from a bid of 3 is a contract for 7. Both teams can bid high in the same hand. There are only 13 tricks, so when the bids add up to more than that, somebody is going to fall short.

A player who thinks the hand is worth no tricks at all has one way to say so.

Nil

A bid of nil is a promise to win no tricks. It carries a bonus of 100 if the bidder stays clear of every trick and a penalty of 100 if even one trick lands. Zero is not a number you can bid quietly: if you want no part of the bonus or the penalty, bid at least one. The nil bidder's partner bids as usual, and that bid alone is the team's contract. Both partners can bid nil in the same hand.

Blind nil

Some tables allow a nil called before the bidder looks at the cards. It pays 200 if it works and costs 200 if it fails. After the bidding and before the first lead, the blind bidder passes two cards face down to their partner and gets two back. The usual agreement is that only a team at least 100 points behind may bid blind nil, and this page keeps that rule.

A nil changes how the whole hand is played. The nil bidder's partner spends the hand covering: playing over the nil hand whenever a trick looks like it might land there, and leading suits the nil bidder is short of. The other team does the opposite, feeding low cards to pull a trick onto the nil hand. One trick decides 200 points, the bonus lost and the penalty paid, so every card in a nil hand gets watched.

Tricks

The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick, any card but a spade. Play passes to the left.

1. Follow suit if you can.
2. With no card of the suit led, play any card, a spade included.
3. A trick with a spade in it goes to the highest spade. A trick with no spade goes to the highest card of the suit led.

The winner of a trick leads to the next, until all 13 are played. Keep the tricks your team wins face down in front of one partner, four cards to a trick, so the count is easy to read against the contract when the hand ends.

Breaking spades

Spades are broken the first time someone plays a spade on the lead of another suit, which can only happen when that player is out of the suit led. Until then nobody may lead a spade. The one exception is a player with nothing but spades left in hand, who may lead one whenever the turn comes around. Once spades are broken, anyone may lead them.

This is the rule that gives the game its shape. A hand full of spades is strong, and the player holding it still has to wait for the right moment, or run out of everything else.

Between hands: shuffling 52 cards

Card sizes and finishes are covered in what cards work with a card shuffler.

How to use Lotus for Spades

Spades is one deck and one load. The dealer runs the deck through a Lotus card shuffler between hands, and with a second deck on the table the next deal is ready when the last trick falls.

At the table	With Lotus
The pack	One standard deck, 52 cards. Tables that play with the jokers use 54.
Loads	One, with or without the jokers. Lotus holds up to two standard decks, 104 cards, loaded together.
Who shuffles	The dealer. One touch on the sensor on top starts each pass. No buttons, nothing to grip.
When	After the hand is scored and the bags are counted.
Passes	Drop the squared deck into the center tray and touch the sensor. Lotus deals the cards into two piles. Stack one pile on the other, and that is one pass. A pass takes about five seconds. About three passes suit a home game. About seven bring a 52-card deck to near-random, the figure from Bayer and Diaconis (1992).
The discard pile	Spades has none. Gather all thirteen tricks from both sides, face down, into one pack.
Two decks	With a second deck of a different back, the dealer's partner runs the idle deck through Lotus while the hand is played, and it is ready when the last trick falls.
The deal moves	To the left after each hand. Lotus runs on a 9V battery with no cord, so it slides along to the next dealer.

More trick-taking games: Euchre, Pinochle and Bridge. Also in the family: Hearts and Bid Whist. Every game is in the game table.

Scoring

Points per hand

Result	Points
Bid made	10 for each trick bid
Each trick over the bid	1, and one bag
Bid missed	Minus 10 for each trick bid
Ten bags	Minus 100 each time the count reaches ten
Nil	100 made, minus 100 failed
Blind nil	200 made, minus 200 failed
Game	500

After the last trick, each team counts its tricks against its contract. A team that took at least as many tricks as it bid scores 10 times the bid, plus 1 for every trick over. A team that fell short is set: it loses 10 times the bid, however close it came, and the tricks it took are worth nothing.

The extra tricks are bags, and they add up across the whole game. Each time a team's bag count reaches ten, 100 comes off its score, and any bags past ten start the next count. Everything else in the game scores in tens, so on a positive score the last digit is the bag count. A team sitting at 237 holds 7 bags, and three more will cost it 100.

A nil scores apart from the contract. If the nil bidder takes no trick, the team adds 100. If the bidder takes a trick, the team loses 100, and the partner's bid is still scored on its own. The nil bidder's tricks never count toward the partner's contract, but they do count as bags. Blind nil works the same way at 200.

The first team to 500 wins. If both teams pass 500 on the same hand, the higher total wins.

A worked hand. North bids 3 and South bids 2, a contract of 5, and they take 8 tricks. That is 50 for the bid and 3 for the bags: 53. East bids nil and West bids 6. East wins one trick, so the nil fails and the team loses 100. That trick does not count toward West's 6, and West took 4, so the team is set as well and loses 60. East and West score minus 160 for the hand. The 13 tricks: 8 to North and South, 1 to East, 4 to West.

Had East stayed out of every trick and West taken 5, the nil would pay 100 and the set would still cost 60, for a hand of 40.

Now watch the bags. North and South sit at 53 with 3 bags. Next hand they bid 5 and take 9 for 54, so they stand at 107 with 7 bags. Then they bid 4 and take 7 for 43. That brings the count to ten, so 100 comes off: 150 less 100 is 50, the last digit is back to 0, and the count starts again. Three good hands, and the bags gave most of it back.

Bags are why a spades player sometimes ducks a trick on purpose. A team that bid 4 and takes 7 scores 43, which looks fine on the night, and the 3 bags sit there waiting. Over a long game every ten of them hands 100 back. Bid what the hand holds, and once the contract is made, let the rest go to the other side if they want it. They are counting bags too.

How other tables play

Spades grew up at kitchen tables, not in a rulebook, so the numbers move from house to house. Settle these before the first deal.

Rule	This page	Other tables play
Nil and blind nil	100 and 200	50 and 100
Bags	Minus 100 at every ten	No penalty at all, or minus 1 for each bag with no count, or bags that count toward the ten and never toward the score
Game	500	300, or 1,000
Leading spades	Only once broken	Any time
A missed bid	Minus 10 for each trick bid	Minus 10 for each trick short
Blind nil	Only when 100 or more behind	Any time
Lowest team bid	None	4, and 10 at most
Bidding	Each player names a number, once around	Partners talk the count over before settling on it; naming a card is out
First lead	Left of the dealer, any card but a spade	The dealer leads, or the lowest club is led and everyone follows with clubs
First hand	Bid as usual	No bidding; 10 for each trick taken
Ten tricks	Scored like any bid	Ten for two hundred: 200 for exactly ten tricks, minus 200 for any other number
All 13 tricks	Scored like any bid	Boston, 200 made and minus 200 failed; called blind, 400 either way
Blind bids above nil	None	Blind 6 for 120, blind 7 for 140: double the usual score, double the usual loss

Three players, cutthroat, jokers

Game	Pack and deal	What changes
Three players	52 cards, 17 each, and one card out of play. With both jokers, 54 cards and 18 each	No partners: each player bids and scores alone. Every extra trick takes 10 off the score for the contract, or the table counts bags to ten as the four-player game does. Game to 300, 400 or 500
Cutthroat	52 cards, 13 each	Four players with no partners. Each bids the tricks they alone will take and scores alone. In the version pagat records, you must beat the highest card in the trick whenever you can
Jokers	Both jokers in. Some tables take out the two of clubs and the two of hearts, which leaves 52 cards and 13 each. Others keep all 54: 13 each, and the dealer takes the last two cards and discards two face down	The jokers are the two top trumps, big joker over little joker, and count as spades for following suit. The two of spades ranks next, then the ace. New York tables keep the two of diamonds as a spade too, ranking between the little joker and the two of spades

With two players there is no deal. The deck sits face down between you, and you take turns drawing. Look at the top card: keep it and discard the next one unseen, or discard it and keep the next one. When each player holds 13 cards and 13 have been set aside, bid and play as above, each for yourself. Six players make three partnerships, partners facing each other, with two decks shuffled together and two low cards removed to make 102. When two identical cards fall on one trick, the second one played wins.

Rules as recorded by pagat.com, Spades, with its notes on the variations, the three-player game and the 54-card pack.

Common questions

How many cards do you get in spades?

13 each. Four players take the whole 52-card deck, dealt one at a time. Three players get 17 each with one card out of play.

What is a bag in spades?

A trick over your bid. Each one is worth 1 point in the hand, and ten of them cost your team 100. On a positive score, the last digit is your bag count.

What is nil in spades?

A bid to take no tricks at all. It pays 100 if the bidder wins none and costs 100 if the bidder wins one. Blind nil is the same bid made before looking at the cards, for 200 either way.

When can you lead spades?

Once they are broken, which happens the first time a player with none of the suit led plays a spade on it. Before that, the only player who may lead a spade is one with nothing else left in hand.

What happens if you do not make your bid?

Your team is set. It loses 10 for each trick it bid and scores nothing for the tricks it took. The other team scores its hand as usual.

Score keeper

Enter each team's combined bid and the tricks it took, then any nil or blind nil, made or failed. A team that falls short of its bid loses it. When a nil fails, count the partner's tricks against the bid: if the bid was still made, add the nil bidder's tricks on top as bags, and if it was not, leave them out. When a team's bag count passes ten, add a bag penalty on that hand. Add the next hand with the plus button. It keeps the game on this device.