Spades

Overview

Spades is a 4-player partnership trick-taking card game where spades are always trump. Players bid how many tricks they expect to win, then play to meet their team's combined bid.

Players & Teams

• 4 players in fixed partnerships
• Team 1: Players 1 & 3 (sitting across from each other)
• Team 2: Players 2 & 4

Setup

A standard 52-card deck is used. Each player receives 13 cards. The dealer rotates clockwise each round. Ace is the highest rank.

Bidding

Before play begins, all players simultaneously bid the number of tricks they expect to take (0–13). Non-nil bids from partners are combined as the team's target.

• Nil (0): A bid of zero — you must take no tricks. Scored individually: +100 if successful, −100 if you take any tricks.
• Blind Nil: A nil bid declared before seeing your hand. Scored individually: +200 if successful, −200 if failed. Only available when your team is 100+ points behind the opposing team.

Play

1. The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick.
2. Play proceeds clockwise. Players must follow suit if able. If unable to follow suit, they may play any card including a spade (trump).
3. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, unless a spade was played — in that case the highest spade wins.
4. The trick winner leads the next trick.

Spade Break Rule

Spades cannot be led until they are "broken" — meaning a spade has been played on a previous trick (typically when a player could not follow suit). Exception: if your hand contains only spades, you may lead them even if spades have not been broken.

Scoring

Each round is scored per team as follows:

Team Bid (non-nil bids)

The team bid is the sum of non-nil bids from both partners. All tricks taken by the team (including tricks taken by a nil bidder who failed) count toward the team total.

• Bid made (team tricks ≥ team bid): +Bid × 10 points, plus +1 point per overtrick (bag).
• Bid missed (team tricks < team bid): −Bid × 10 points.

Nil Scoring

Nil bids are scored individually, separate from the team bid:

Bid	Success (0 tricks taken)	Failure (1+ tricks taken)
Nil	+100	−100
Blind Nil	+200	−200

A nil bidder's tricks do not help the team bid but do count toward the team's total tricks for overtrick (bag) calculation.

Bags Penalty

Overtricks ("bags") accumulate across rounds. Every 10 cumulative bags incurs a −100 point penalty, and the bag count resets to the remainder.

Winning

• First team to reach 500 points wins.
• If both teams reach 500 in the same round, the higher score wins. If tied, both teams win.
• A team that falls to −200 points or below loses immediately. If both teams fall to −200 in the same round, the less negative score wins.