Spades for Beginners
Five rules get you playing. Everything else you can pick up at the table.
Play Spades freeSpades has a reputation for being complicated. It is not — it has one unusual idea (you predict how many tricks you will win) bolted onto a very simple card game. This page gets you playing in about ten minutes. The full rules are there when you want the detail.
The five rules that matter
- Four players, two teams. You and the player opposite you are partners. You share one score.
- Everyone is dealt 13 cards, and there are 13 tricks. A trick is one card from each player; whoever plays the highest card takes it.
- You must follow suit. If hearts are led and you have a heart, you play a heart. If you have none, you may play anything — including a spade, which wins.
- Spades are always trump. Any spade beats any card of any other suit. Higher spades beat lower ones.
- Before the hand you bid — you say how many of the 13 tricks you expect to take. Make your bid and you score; miss it and you lose the lot.
That is the whole game. Everything below is just doing it well.
Your first hand, step by step
1. Look at your cards and count winners. Aces will almost certainly win. The A♠ and K♠ will win. Everything else is a maybe.
2. Add your long spades. If you hold four or more spades, the ones past your third will usually win late in the hand, once the big trumps are gone.
3. Say that number. If you counted two aces and four spades, bid 3. Most bids are 2, 3 or 4 — those are ordinary hands, not weak ones.
4. Play. Follow suit when you can. Play a spade when you cannot follow and want the trick.
5. Stop winning once you have made your bid. Extra tricks are called bags and they come back to bite you.
What to bid when you have no idea
| Your hand | Bid |
|---|---|
| No aces, two or three low spades | 1 |
| One ace, three spades | 2 |
| Two aces, or one ace and four spades | 3 |
| Two aces and four or five spades | 4 |
| Two spades or fewer, no aces, no kings | consider nil |
Bidding is a promise, not a prediction of the future — you can influence it by how you play. If you bid 3 and have taken 3, start losing on purpose.
Scoring, simply
- Make your bid: 10 points per trick you bid. Bid 4, take 4, score 40.
- Miss your bid: lose 10 points per trick you bid. Bid 4, take 3, score −40.
- Extra tricks (bags): 1 point each — but every 10 bags costs you 100. Bid 4, take 6, score 42 and bank 2 bags.
- Nil: bid zero and take no tricks for +100. Take one and it is −100.
- First team to 500 wins.
Your bid and your partner's are added together into one team bid, so any split of the tricks between you works. Bid 3 while they bid 2, and your side needs any 5 tricks.
Six mistakes every new player makes
- Bidding on pretty cards. Three queens is usually zero tricks. Count aces and spades, nothing else.
- Bidding too low to be safe. Underbidding every hand piles up bags, and the tenth one costs 100 points. Bid what you counted.
- Winning tricks you did not need. Once your bid is made, every extra trick is a small debt. Throw your losers happily.
- Trumping your partner's winning card. If their ace is already taking the trick, your spade is wasted and becomes a bag. Watch who is winning before you play.
- Playing spades too early. You cannot even lead a spade until they are "broken" — someone has to trump a trick first. Save them.
- Forgetting your partner exists. Their bid is your bid. If they bid 5, you do not need to win anything spectacular.
What to learn next
Once the basics feel automatic, the two things that improve your game fastest are counting the spades — there are 13, and knowing when they have all gone makes your other cards certain — and learning when nil is safe, because a made nil is worth more than most whole hands.
Keep reading
- How to Play Spades — the complete rules.
- Spades Bidding Guide — counting a hand properly.
- Nil in Spades — the game's biggest swing.
- Spades vs Hearts — if you also know Hearts.
- Spades for 2 Players — two-hand rules and the draw deal.