How to play Spades: a visual guide

Spades is a trick-taking card game for four players in two partnerships. Partners sit opposite each other. Before each hand, every player bids how many tricks they expect to win, and your bid and your partner's add up to your team's contract. Spades are always trump, and the first team to 500 points wins.

The deck

Spades uses one standard 52-card deck with no jokers. All 52 cards are dealt, so each player holds 13, and every hand is 13 tricks. Cards rank from the 2 up to the ace, which is high.

What is a trick?

A trick is one round of play: each player adds one card, and one card wins. Because everyone starts with 13 cards, every hand has 13 tricks.

1. 01 One player leads. The first card sets the suit for this trick.
2. 02 Everyone plays one card, in turn round the table. If you have a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
3. 03 The best card wins. If any spades were played, the highest spade wins. If not, the highest card of the suit led wins. Cards of other suits can never win.
4. 04 The winner leads the next trick. Each trick counts toward that player's team.

Bidding

After the deal, each player in turn bids the number of tricks they expect to win, from 0 to 13. There is no minimum and no need to outbid anyone. Your bid and your partner's are added together to make your team's contract: if you bid 3 and your partner bids 4, your team needs at least 7 of the 13 tricks.

A bid of 0 is called nil. It's a promise that you personally will win no tricks at all in that hand. Nil is scored on its own, separately from your partner's bid. Our game doesn't use blind nil, where a player bids nil before looking at their cards.

Playing the hand

Once everyone has bid, the player holding the 2♣ leads it to the first trick. After that, whoever wins a trick leads the next one.

• If you have a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
• If you have none of that suit, you can play any card, including a spade.
• The hand ends after all 13 tricks. Partners add their tricks together.

Breaking spades

You can't lead a spade until spades are broken. Spades are broken the first time someone plays a spade on a trick because they couldn't follow the suit that was led. From then on, anyone can lead spades for the rest of the hand.

One exception: if your hand holds nothing but spades, you may lead one even before they are broken. In our game that lead doesn't break spades for everyone else.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, each team compares the tricks it won with its contract. Every trick over the contract is a bag.

Tricks won by a nil bidder still count toward the team's contract, but they also break the nil. If you bid 4, your partner bids nil and wins 2 tricks, and you win 3, your team won 5: the contract of 4 is made for 40 points plus 1 bag, and the failed nil costs 100, so the hand scores −59.

Bags add up

Bags carry over from hand to hand. When a team's running total reaches 10 bags, it loses 100 points and 10 bags come off its count. That makes overshooting your contract risky: a bid that's too low can cost you more than it earns.

Winning the game

Hands are dealt and played until a team reaches 500 points. If both teams pass 500 in the same hand, the higher score wins. If they're tied, play goes on to another hand.

Quick recap

• Four players, two teams, partners opposite. 13 cards each.
• Bid 0 to 13 tricks. Partners' bids add up to the team contract, and 0 is nil.
• The 2♣ leads the first trick. Follow suit if you can.
• Spades are trump, but can't be led until they're broken.
• Make the contract for 10 points per trick bid. Every 10 bags cost 100.
• The first team to 500 points wins.