How to Play Spades
Bid your tricks, trump with spades and watch your bags. The Spades card game rules, step by step.
Spades is a trick-taking card game for four players in two partnerships, where the spade suit is always trumps. Each player bids how many tricks they will win, and your team scores if it makes its combined bid. It was invented in the American Midwest in the late 1930s and spread around the world with US soldiers during the Second World War. Since the 1990s, online card rooms have made it popular worldwide. It plays like a simpler cousin of Bridge. This guide covers the Spades rules step by step, bidding and Nil, scoring and bags, versions for two and three players, and how well the usual way of counting your tricks works.
Spades Rules at a Glance
| Spades | |
|---|---|
| Players | Four, in two partnerships; partners sit opposite each other. There are also versions for two, three and six players. |
| Cards | A standard 52-card pack. Cards rank Ace (high), King, Queen, Jack, 10 … 2. |
| Deal | All 52 cards, one at a time, so everyone has 13. |
| Trumps | Spades, always. Any spade beats any card of another suit. |
| Bidding | Each player bids the number of tricks they expect to win; partners’ bids are added together. |
| Play | Follow suit if you can. Spades cannot be led until they have been “broken”. |
| Scoring | 10 points per trick bid if your team makes it, plus 1 per extra trick. Fail, and you lose 10 per trick bid. |
| Winning | The first team to 500 points. |
How to Play Spades
- Sit with your partner opposite. Deal and play go clockwise. Choose the first dealer at random; after each hand the deal passes to the left.
- Deal 13 cards each. The dealer deals the whole pack one card at a time, starting with the player on their left.
- Bid. Starting on the dealer’s left, each player says how many tricks they expect to take, from 0 to 13. There is one round of bidding, nobody may pass, and bids cannot be changed. Your bid and your partner’s are added together: if you bid 4 and your partner bids 1, your team needs at least 5 tricks.
- Lead. The player on the dealer’s left leads any card except a spade to the first trick.
- Follow suit. Each player in turn must play a card of the suit led if they have one. If you have none, you may play any card, including a spade.
- Win the trick. The highest spade wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads to the next trick.
- Break spades. You cannot lead a spade until a spade has been played on another suit, unless you hold nothing but spades.
- Score the hand once all 13 tricks have been played, then deal again. Keep going until a team reaches 500.
Bidding in Spades
Bidding is the heart of the game. Bid too low and you collect penalty bags; bid too high and your team is “set” and loses points. A common way to start is to count:
- 1 for each Ace.
- 1 for each King that has at least one other card of its suit with it.
- 1 for each spade beyond your third. With five spades, count two.
Then adjust: a void or a single card in a side suit lets you trump early, and a long run of spades from the top is worth more than the count says.
Nil and Blind Nil
A bid of 0 is called Nil: you promise to win no tricks at all. It earns your team a 100-point bonus if you succeed and costs 100 if you take even one trick, and your partner’s bid is scored separately as usual. Blind Nil is a Nil bid made before you look at your cards and is worth 200 either way. After the bidding you may swap two cards with your partner. Many tables only allow it when your team is behind by at least 100 points.
Spades Scoring
| Result | Score |
|---|---|
| Team makes its bid | 10 points for each trick bid |
| Each trick over the bid (a “bag”) | +1 point |
| Every 10 bags collected | −100 points |
| Team fails to make its bid (is “set”) | −10 points for each trick bid |
| Nil made / failed | +100 / −100 |
| Blind Nil made / failed | +200 / −200 |
Worked example: your team has 337 points and bids 5. Take 7 tricks and you score 52, for 389. Take 8 and you score 53, but that is your tenth bag, so you also lose 100 and finish on 290. Because each bag adds 1, the last digit of a positive score always shows how many bags you are carrying. The first team to reach 500 wins; if both teams pass 500 on the same hand, the higher score wins. For a shorter game, play to 200.
Spades for Two and Three Players
Three players play for themselves. Deal 17 cards each and set the last card aside. The player with the 2 of clubs leads it to the first trick. In the basic three-player rules, each extra trick takes 10 off your score: bid 4 and take 5, and you score 30 instead of 40. The game is played to an agreed total, often 300 or 500.
Two players don’t deal. The pack sits face down between you and you take turns drawing. Look at the top card and either keep it and discard the next one face down, or discard it and keep the next one. When the pack runs out you each hold 13 cards. Then bid and play as normal.
Spades Variations
The rules above are the standard used in online play. Home games often add their own twists:
| Variation | How it works |
|---|---|
| Jokers | Two Jokers are added as the highest trumps (big Joker, then little Joker) and the 2s of clubs and hearts are taken out. The 2 of spades then usually ranks third, above the Ace. |
| Partnership bidding | Partners discuss and agree one bid for the team, often with a minimum of 4 tricks. |
| Passing cards | Before bidding, partners pass three cards to each other face down. |
| Boston | Taking all 13 tricks. In some groups a team that bids 10 and takes all 13 wins the game outright. |
| Set twice, you lose | In some groups a team that fails its bid on two hands in a row loses the whole game. |
| First hand free | The first hand is played without bidding, at 10 points per trick. |
| Individual Spades | Everyone plays for themselves with a minimum bid of 1, and a failed bid scores 0. |
Spades Strategy
- Count, then add a little. In simulated deals, hands took about half a trick more than the simple count, so the count is a sensible floor.
- Watch the bags. Once your team is near ten bags, an extra trick costs you 100 points. Duck tricks you don’t need, and push the opponents over their bid if they are close to ten.
- Cover your partner’s Nil. If your partner bids Nil, play high to win tricks they might otherwise be forced to take.
- Lead your partner’s suits. Their bid tells you something about their hand. Leading a suit they may be short in lets them trump.
- Keep track of spades. There are 13. Once the top ones are gone, your low spades become winners.
How good is the simple count? In 40,000 simulated deals where all four seats were played by the same simple computer player, the count was within one trick of the tricks actually taken in 79% of hands and exactly right in 33%. On average a hand took 0.6 tricks more than its count, and a team bidding the two counts added together made its bid 90% of the time.
Spades Odds
- Spades in your hand. You hold 3.25 spades on average. Five or more happens 18% of the time; no spades at all only about 1 hand in 78.
- The Ace of spades is in your hand one deal in four (25%). If you don’t have it, your partner holds it one time in three.
- A void (no cards at all in some suit) turns up in 5% of hands. That is when you can start trumping on the very first round.
More Card Games
If you like Spades, try Gin Rummy, Canasta, Crazy Eights, President and Three Card Brag.
Another favourite card game: Golf, where you swap and pair cards to get the lowest score.
The other great American trick-taking game: Hearts, where every trick you avoid is a point saved.
Bid alone, and bid exactly: Oh Hell, where one trick too many costs you the bonus.
Another partnership game with bidding: Pinochle, where your team scores for meld as well as for the tricks it wins.
The classic partnership game: Whist, the classic partnership trick-taking game with no bidding, where trumps are set by the turned-up card.
Another partnership favourite: Euchre, played with 24 cards and the right and left bowers.
Another game for teams: how to play Sequence.
Spades card game: frequently asked questions
How do you play Spades?
What is the object of Spades?
Is Spades easy to learn?
How do you play Spades with 2 people?
How do you play Spades with 3 players?
What are bags in Spades?
What does Nil mean in Spades?
Can you lead with a spade?
Fadi Hayek
Author & Casino Expert
After going through several successful experiences with several industry pioneers, Fadi Hayek has managed to excel in the world of content for online gaming by providing unique content for several projects that allowed him to obtain the necessary experience to launch his career. Last but not least, Fadi also holds several certificates, including but not limited to content marketing and iGaming.
