Spades rules

Setup & dealing

Four players form two partnerships, partners sitting across from each other. In our game you (South) partner Kári (North) against Helga (West) and Björn (East). The whole 52-card deck is dealt, 13 cards each. Aces are high, and spades are trump on every hand — any spade beats any card of another suit.

The first dealer is chosen at random, and the deal rotates one seat to the left after every hand. The player to the dealer's left bids first and also leads the first trick. Unlike Hearts, there is no required opening card — the opening leader may play anything except a spade (see breaking spades below).

Bidding

Starting left of the dealer and going clockwise, each player makes exactly one bid: a number from 0 to 13. There are no second bids, no passes and no auctions — the four numbers stand as spoken.

• A normal bid (1–13) is a personal estimate of tricks, but it is scored as a team: your bid and your partner's bid are added together into a single team contract.
• A bid of 0 is nil — a promise to win no tricks at all. Nil is scored individually (see the scoring table), and your partner's bid still stands as a separate one-person contract.
• There is no blind nil in this version, and no doubling or redoubling. Both partners may bid nil if they dare — each nil is then judged on its own.

Bidding is informational as well as contractual: you see the other three bids form before the cards are played, and the totals tell you how contested the hand will be. Thirteen tricks exist; if the table bids 14, someone is getting set.

Trick play

The player left of the dealer leads the first trick, and play proceeds clockwise. You must follow suit if you hold a card of the led suit. If you are void, you may play anything — including a spade, which is how spades "trump in". A trick is won by the highest spade played to it; if no spade was played, by the highest card of the led suit. The trick winner leads next.

Breaking spades: you may not lead a spade until spades have been broken — that is, until someone has played a spade on a non-spade trick because they were void. The one exception: if your hand contains nothing but spades, you may lead one. Once broken, spades may be led freely. Note that discarding a spade while void breaks spades even if that spade did not win the trick.

Each hand is exactly 13 tricks, and tricks are tracked per player — not just per team — because nil scoring needs to know exactly who won what. Within the team, though, it makes no difference to a normal contract which partner takes the tricks: a 3-bid and a 2-bid together simply need five tricks between the two non-nil hands.

Trumping is never compulsory. When you are void in the led suit you may ruff with a spade or throw a side-suit loser — and when a spade has already been played to the trick, only a higher spade beats it. Second and later spades to the same trick fight among themselves; the led suit becomes irrelevant the moment any trump lands.

Scoring

When the 13th trick is done the hand is scored. A team's contract is the sum of its two non-nil bids, and the tricks counted toward that contract are the tricks won by the non-nil bidders (this matters when a nil fails — see below).

Bags are the tax on winning tricks you did not bid. Each overtrick scores 1 point but also adds a bag to your team's running bag count, which carries over from hand to hand. Whenever the count reaches 10, the team loses 100 points and 10 bags are removed. This is applied as often as needed: if a wild hand pushes a team across two multiples of ten, they lose 200 points in one scoring.

Failed nil fine print: when a nil bidder wins tricks, the team loses 100 — and those tricks are excluded from the partner's contract count, so they cannot rescue the partner's bid. They are not harmless either: every trick a failed nil bidder won is added to the team's bags. A spectacularly failed nil can therefore cost 100 points now and trigger a bag penalty later.

A worked hand: your team bids 4 + nil, the opponents bid 3 + 5. You (the 4-bidder) take six tricks; your nil partner takes none; the opponents take seven between their non-nil bidders. Your side scores the made nil (+100) plus the made contract (4 × 10 = 40) plus two overtricks (+2) for 142, banking 2 bags. The opponents' combined 8-bid saw only 7 tricks, so they are set for −80. One hand, a 222-point swing — which is why nil coverage and setting the enemy contract dominate good Spades play.

Winning the game

The game ends the moment a team's total is 500 or more at the end of a hand, and the team with the higher total wins. Both teams' hand scores are applied simultaneously, so if both cross 500 in the same hand the higher score takes the game.

There is no mercy rule and no floor: scores can go as deep into the negatives as failed contracts, failed nils and bag penalties can push them. A game only ever ends by a team reaching +500 — never by one falling to −200.

Edge cases & fine print

• Failed-nil tricks never help the partner. The partner's bid is measured only against the partner's own tricks. Bid 4 + nil, take 3 + 2: the nil fails (−100) and the 4-bid is set too (−40), even though the team took 5 tricks.
• Failed-nil tricks are bags. Every trick the failed nil bidder took joins the team bag count on top of the −100.
• Both partners can bid nil. Each nil is scored on its own: two made nils are +200; one made and one failed cancel to 0 (plus bags from the failed one).
• Multiple bag penalties in one hand. The −100 applies for every full 10 bags, repeatedly, in the same scoring if necessary.
• Discarding a spade breaks spades. Any spade played to a trick — winning or not — allows spade leads afterwards.
• All-spades hand: with only spades left you may lead one even if spades are unbroken.
• No misdeals or reneges exist: the game only ever offers you legal cards, so a revoke (failing to follow suit while able) is impossible.
• Simultaneous 500: both teams' deltas land together; the higher total wins the game.

Variants

We play the standard online partnership ruleset, matching cardgames.io exactly: bids 0–13 with no blind nil, 10-points-per-trick contracts, 1-point bags with the rolling 100-point penalty, ±100 nil, game to 500 with no negative-score mercy rule. House variants you may have met that are not used here:

• Blind nil (bidding nil before looking at your cards for ±200). Not offered.
• Ten-for-two hundred ("boston" bonuses for taking all 13 tricks). No bonus here — 13 tricks against a 6-bid is 60 + 7 bags.
• Mercy / whitewash rules ending the game at −200. Scores here are unbounded below.
• Bag reset variants that erase bags at hand end. Bags here persist until they cost you 100.
• Deuce of spades high, jokers, or Cutthroat (3-player) spades. Not played — always 4 players, standard deck, partnerships.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Hearts rules — avoid hearts and the queen of spades
• Whist rules — classic tricks, rotating trump, first to 7
• Oh Hell! rules — bid your tricks exactly — no more, no less
• Euchre rules — bowers, trump and 5-trick showdowns