How to Play Spades

Four players, two partnerships. Say how many tricks you'll win. Then win exactly that many.

Spades A♠ always beat everything else. The twist is that winning too much is punished.

Setup

• 4 players in 2 teams. Partners sit opposite each other
• Full 52-card deck, 13 cards each
• First team to 500 points wins

Each round, in order

1. Everyone bids the number of tricks they expect to take, 0 to 13. Your team's contract is you and your partner's bids added together.
2. Play 13 tricks. Follow the suit led if you can.
3. Spades win. Any spade beats any card of another suit. Highest spade takes it. Otherwise the highest card of the suit led wins.
4. You can't lead a spade until spades are "broken". Someone has played one on another suit. Unless spades are all you hold.

Scoring

Bags are the whole game. They look like a bonus and they're a debt: ten of them wipe out a made contract twice over. The counter carries over between rounds and rolls past 10, so it never resets in your favour.

Nil

Bid nil to say you'll take no tricks at all.

• Succeed: +100
• Take even one trick: −100

Your partner still plays their own contract normally, and a good partner will try to cover you. Winning tricks you might otherwise be forced to take.

Quick tips

• Count your winners, not your hopes. Aces, protected kings, and long spades. Bid those.
• Underbid slightly rather than over. A missed contract costs more than a bag.
• Void a suit early if you can. It lets you trump in later.
• Watch your team's bag count. At 8 or 9, deliberately losing a trick is worth more than winning it.

Bidding well

Your bid is a promise, and the scoring punishes both directions, so the skill is estimating honestly rather than optimistically.

A workable method is to count your near-certain tricks and add a fraction for the maybes. Aces of side suits are usually a trick. Kings are a trick if you hold a second card of that suit to protect them, and often not if the king is bare. High spades are tricks. Long spades are tricks even when they're small, because once everyone else is out of spades, your fours and fives win.

Some things that are worth more than they look:

• Length in spades. Five small spades will usually take two or three tricks late in the hand. Two high spades might take exactly two.
• A void in a side suit, if you have spades left. You can trump in.

And worth less than they look:

• A bare king or queen. It will meet the ace and die.
• Middling cards in long side suits. A hand of four jacks and tens is a hand that takes almost nothing.

Bags, and why low bids are punished

Every trick you take beyond your bid is a bag, worth one point. Ten bags costs a hundred. This rule exists precisely to stop the strategy the scoring would otherwise reward. Bidding two, taking six, and pocketing the difference.

In practice it means a team that consistently under-bids will bleed a hundred points every few hands, which is roughly the value of ten made tricks. It also means that late in a hand you've already made, you should be actively trying to lose tricks: throwing low cards away, ducking under leads, and letting the opposition take the ones nobody wants.

Nil, in more detail

Nil is worth a hundred and costs a hundred, which makes it the highest-variance decision in the game.

A nil bid is safe in proportion to how low your cards are and how short you are in spades. The classic danger is a hand with no spades at all. You'll be forced to discard on spade leads, but you have nothing to duck with in the suits you do hold, and a lone jack in a three-card suit will eventually win a trick you can't dodge.

If your partner bids nil, your job changes completely:

• Lead your highest cards, to strip the suits your partner might get caught in.
• Take tricks aggressively. Every trick you win is a trick your partner can't be stuck with.
• Bid conservatively for yourself. You're covering; you're not trying to make a big number at the same time.

Blind nil. Bidding nil before looking at your cards, for double the stakes, is a common house rule and is usually a bad idea unless the score demands it.

Playing the hand

Do not lead spades early unless you're hunting for a specific card. Leading trump strips your own team's ability to trump in later, and in Spades you often can't lead them at all until they're broken.

Count the spades. Thirteen exist. Once you know they're gone, your long side-suit cards become winners.

Watch what your partner discards. A partner who throws away a suit is telling you they're void and can trump it. Lead that suit when you want them to take a trick.

Lead through strength, not into it. If the player on your left has been winning hearts all hand, leading hearts hands them another one.

Common variations

The version here is standard partnership Spades: bid, ten per trick, one per bag, a hundred lost per ten bags, nil at ±100.

Frequently asked

Can I lead a spade whenever I want? Not until spades are broken, which means until someone has played one on a trick because they couldn't follow suit. If spades are all you hold, you may lead one.

Does a bid of zero count as nil? Yes. Bidding nil and bidding zero are the same thing.

What if both partners bid nil? Both are scored separately: each succeeds or fails on their own. It's very hard to make and most tables discourage it.

Do bags carry between rounds? Yes. That's the point of them. They accumulate all game, and every tenth one costs a hundred points.

Who leads the first trick? The player to the dealer's left. Some houses require the two of clubs to lead, as in Hearts; the version here doesn't.

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Last updated 2026-09-02