Spades › Rules

Spades rules

Spades is played with plenty of house rules. These are the rules used on this site, for four players in two teams of two. Where a common rule differs, we say so. Play spades online as you read.

The goal

With your partner, take the number of tricks your team bid each hand, without taking too many more, and be the first team to 500 points.

1. The deal

Spades uses a standard 52-card deck, aces high. Each player gets 13 cards. The deal moves one seat to the left each hand.

2. Bidding

Starting with the player to the dealer’s left, each player bids once: the number of tricks they expect to take, from 1 to 13, or nil, meaning none. Your team’s bid is your bid plus your partner’s. A nil bid doesn’t count toward the team’s bid.

Some tables allow blind nil, bid before looking at your cards. We don’t.

3. Playing the tricks

The player to the dealer’s left leads any card except a spade. Everyone must follow the suit led if they can. If you can’t, you may play a spade or any other card. A trick with spades in it goes to the highest spade; otherwise the highest card of the suit led takes it. Whoever takes a trick leads the next.

4. Breaking spades

You can’t lead a spade until spades are broken, meaning a spade has been played on an earlier trick. The only exception is when you have nothing but spades.

5. Scoring the bid

A team that takes at least its bid scores 10 points for each trick bid, and 1 point for each extra trick, called a bag. For example, partners bid 4 and 2 and take 4 and 3 tricks:

Bid 6, took 7: +60. 1 bag: +1. Total +61.

A team that takes fewer tricks than its bid loses 10 points for each trick bid. Partners who bid 5 and 3 but take only 6 tricks between them:

Bid 8, took only 6: −80.

6. Nil

A player who bids nil scores 100 points for the team if they take no tricks at all, and loses 100 if they take even one. The partner’s bid is scored on its own, and any tricks the nil bidder takes count as bags, not toward the partner’s bid. A nil made beside a partner’s bid of 5 who takes 6:

Bid 5, took 6: +50. Nil made: +100. 1 bag: +1. Total +151.

7. Bags

Bags carry over from hand to hand. Each time a team has built up 10, it loses 100 points and starts counting again from what’s left over. A team carrying 8 bags that bids 4 and takes 6:

Bid 4, took 6: +40. 2 bags: +2. 10 bags built up: −100. Total −58.

8. Winning

Keep dealing until a team reaches 500 at the end of a hand. If both teams pass 500, the higher score wins; if the scores are level, play another hand. There is no losing score on this site: a team can go below zero and come back.