How to play Spades card game?

A Story by Paul Sargent

How to play Spades card game online

A typical game consists of four players and two teams. You and the person across from you are on the same team, as are the other two.

The Objective of Spades game

The goal is to collect points, and the first person to 500 points wins.

Dealing

The dealer will deal out all of the cards, leaving each player with 13 to begin with.

Bidding

Bidding is simply speculating on how many "tricks" you can handle. Each player will bid (or guess) how many tricks they will take before each round of Spades begins.

The total number of bids is then added up by the teams. This is the number of tricks that a team must win to receive a positive score.

The person to the left of the dealer is the first to bid. The bidding then proceeds clockwise around the table.

You may bid on any number between 0 and 13. However, keep in mind that mastering all or even half of the tricks is extremely difficult. Another strategy we'll discuss shortly is a bid of zero or "nil."

Here's an illustration: Sarah is in charge. Beyonce bids three, Billy bids one, and Terrance bids four. Finally, Sarah bids $4. Billy and Sarah's goal is to win at least 5 tricks (4+1), while Terrance and Beyonce hope to win at least 7 (4+3).

As previously stated, a bid of zero is also known as a nil bid. This is essentially a player attempting to NOT win any tricks. But why would anyone do that? If you can bid nil and win, you'll get a huge bonus. There is also a penalty for bidding zero and receiving one or more tricks. We'll get to scoring in a moment.

Gameplay

After all bids have been completed, the player to the dealer's left begins by playing any card EXCEPT a spade. There can be any number of hearts, diamonds, or clubs, but no spades.

Then, again in clockwise order, each player places a card (trick) face up on the table. The card must be of the same suit as the person who initiated the game (in this case, the person to the left of the dealer). You can play any card of any suit if you don't have the same suit!

If a spade is played, it trumps all other cards EXCEPT higher spades. So, if someone plays the Ace of Diamonds and I play the 2 of Spades, I win the trick if no other spades are played. If no spades are played, the highest card of the suit played first wins. Each trick's winner advances to the next.

Spades are "broken" after the first spade is played.

Scoring

So we've already discussed how the goal is to get the number of tricks bid by you and your partner. If you bid 5, you should receive at least 5. If you get exactly five, you win ten times your bid, or fifty points. Extra tricks (overtricks) are only worth one point each.

This means that if my partner and I bid 5 and receive 7 tricks, our total score for that round will be 52.

But if we don't get 5 tricks, we're in big trouble. This means that for each bid, we lose 10 points. So, if we bid 5 and receive 4 tricks, we lose 50 points! Eek!

Sandbagging: Each trick we win that is higher than the bid is referred to as a bag. To return to the example, if we bid 5 and receive 7, we will receive 2 bags.

Bags can also be harmful. You keep track of the number of bags you get each round, and if you get a total of 10 bags, you lose 100 points for that round. Your bag count will then reset to zero.

Do you recall the nil (or zero) bid? You get 100 points if you can pull off a nil bid and get no tricks! This is in addition to the amount that your partner wins or loses. If you bid nil and fail to win, you lose 100 points, so it can be very costly. Again, your partner's score is still considered in the round.

If a nil bid fails, the tricks won by the nil bidder do not count toward your partner's bid, but they do count as bags for the team if the total exceeds your partner's bid.

The team with the most points at the end of the game wins. If both sides score 500 points in a single transaction, the team with the higher score wins. Do you understand? Then go back up there and play a game of Spades!!!