How to play Spades: Complete rules, setup, gameplay, and strategy tips for beginners.

Spades is a 4-player trick-taking card game played in partnerships. It combines the accessibility of Hearts with the strategic depth of Bridge, using a permanent trump suit (Spades) and a bidding system that rewards accurate prediction.

What You Need

  • Players: 4 (2 teams of 2, partners sit across from each other)
  • Deck: Standard 52 cards (no Jokers)
  • Goal: First team to reach 500 points

Setup

  1. Decide teams — partners sit across from each other
  2. Deal the entire deck — 13 cards each
  3. Each player picks up their cards and bids

Bidding

Before play begins, each player examines their hand and bids how many tricks they expect to win (1-13). Partners’ bids are added together.

How to bid:

  • Count your guaranteed winners (Aces, Kings in long suits, high Spades)
  • Add a trick or two for probable winners
  • Your team’s combined bid is your contract — the total tricks you need to win

Special bids:

  • Nil: Promise to win 0 tricks. Success = +100 points, failure = -100 points.
  • Blind Nil: Bid nil before looking at cards. +200 / -200. (Very rare.)

You cannot bid 0 unless you’re going nil. Minimum standard bid is 1.

Playing Tricks

How a Trick Works

  1. The player to the dealer’s left leads the first trick
  2. Play proceeds clockwise — each player plays 1 card
  3. You must follow suit if you can
  4. If you can’t follow suit, you may play any card (including a Spade)
  5. The highest card of the led suit wins — unless a Spade was played
  6. The highest Spade wins if any Spades were played
  7. The trick winner leads the next trick

Breaking Spades

Spades cannot be led until they have been “broken” — meaning someone has played a Spade on a non-Spade trick (usually because they were out of the led suit).

Exception: If a player has nothing but Spades in their hand, they may lead with a Spade even if Spades haven’t been broken.

Card Ranking

Within each suit, cards rank from high to low: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

Spades always beat non-Spades.

Scoring

After all 13 tricks are played:

Meeting Your Bid

If your team wins at least as many tricks as your combined bid:

  • You earn 10 × your bid in points
  • Each additional trick (overtrick/bag) earns 1 point

Example: Bid 7, won 9 → 10 × 7 = 70 + 2 bags = 72 points

Failing Your Bid (Set)

If your team wins fewer tricks than your combined bid:

  • You lose 10 × your bid in points

Example: Bid 7, won 5 → -70 points

Bag Penalty

Bags accumulate across rounds. When your team reaches 10 bags, you lose 100 points and the bag counter resets.

This discourages sandbagging (consistently underbidding to play it safe).

Nil Scoring

Bid Success Failure
Nil +100 -100
Blind Nil +200 -200

Nil points are added/subtracted independently from the partner’s trick-based score.

Example Round

Team A bids: Player 1 bids 4, Player 2 bids 3 → Team A contract = 7 Team B bids: Player 3 bids 4, Player 4 bids 3 → Team B contract = 7

(All 13 tricks are played)

Results: Team A wins 8, Team B wins 5

  • Team A: Met bid (7) with 1 bag → 70 + 1 = 71 points (1 bag tracked)
  • Team B: Failed bid (5 < 7) → -70 points

Strategy Basics

  1. Bid accurately — Overbidding leads to sets (-70, -80 points). Underbidding leads to bags. Count winners carefully.
  2. High Spades are gold — Ace, King, and Queen of Spades are almost guaranteed tricks. Count them as winners when bidding.
  3. Lead your short suits — If you have only 1 or 2 cards of a suit, lead them early. Once you’re void in a suit, you can trump other players’ leads.
  4. Protect a Nil-bidding partner — If your partner bid nil, win tricks early and lead low cards in suits where your partner might be forced to take a trick.
  5. Count cards — Track which high cards have been played, especially Spades. Knowing the Ace and King of Spades are gone changes your play.
  6. Don’t break Spades early unless you have a plan. It often benefits the team with more Spades.

Play Spades Online

Spades is available to play free in your browser on Rare Pike. No downloads, no accounts — partnership play with bots or real players.