Card game rules
Spades rules: bidding, nil, bags and scoring
Spades is a four-player partnership trick-taking game. You look at your hand, bid how many tricks you will take, and your team has to land that number exactly or close to it. Spades are always trump.
The basics
Partners, cards and the goal
Four players sit in two teams, with partners across from each other. Use a standard 52-card deck. Cards rank from ace high down to two low, and the spade suit is trump for the whole game. A spade beats any card of another suit, and you can play one whenever you have no card in the suit that was led.
Deal the whole deck, 13 cards each. Each player bids a number of tricks, the two bids on a team are added into one team contract, and then the hand is played out. The first team to reach 500 points wins.
Before play
Bidding
Starting with the player to the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player says how many tricks they expect to win, from 0 to 13. Nobody can see anyone else's cards, so partners are guessing from their own hands and from the bids they hear.
A rough way to count your tricks: each ace is probably a trick, a king with a couple of cards behind it is often a trick, and long spade holdings take tricks by trumping. A hand with very few spades and a lot of aces and kings is a solid bid. A hand with several small spades is worth fewer than it looks.
The team's contract is the two bids added together. If you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, you need 7 tricks between you.
Playing a hand
How the tricks work
The player left of the dealer leads
They can play any card except a spade, unless spades have been broken or they hold only spades.
Follow suit if you can
If you have a card in the suit that was led, you must play one.
Trump with a spade if you cannot
With no card in the led suit, you can play a spade, and the highest spade in the trick wins it. You can also throw any other card instead.
The highest card wins
The trick goes to the highest spade if any were played, otherwise to the highest card of the suit that was led. The winner leads the next trick.
Count tricks after 13
Each team adds up the tricks won by both partners. That total is compared to the contract.
Spades are broken when someone first plays one on a trick. Until then, nobody can lead a spade, unless that player has only spades left.
Scoring
Points, bags and penalties
| Result | Points | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Make your bid | 10 points for each trick bid | A team bidding 6 and taking 6 scores 60 |
| Overtricks (bags) | 1 point for each extra trick | Bid 6, take 8: 60 plus 2 for 62 |
| Miss your bid | Minus 10 points for each trick bid | Bid 6, take 5: minus 60 |
| Ten bags | Minus 100 points | Counted across hands, then the bag count resets |
| Nil, made | Plus 100 points | The bidder won zero tricks |
| Nil, broken | Minus 100 points | The bidder took at least one trick |
| Blind nil, made | Plus 200 points | Bid before looking at your cards, in groups that use it |
What counts as a bag
If your team takes more tricks than it bid, you score 10 for each trick of the bid, and 1 point for each extra trick. Those extras are bags. They look like free points, but they pile up. Reaching ten bags across the game costs 100 points, so skilled teams try to take about what they bid and no more.
Scoring a nil
A nil bid is scored separately from the partner's bid. If the nil player wins no tricks, the team gets 100 points. If they take a trick, the team loses 100. The partner's number is scored the usual way.
Ending the game
Playing to 500
Keep a running score for each team. Once a hand finishes with at least one team at 500 or more, the game is over and the higher score wins. If both are above 500, the higher total wins. Some groups also end the game when a team falls to minus 200.
Common variations
House rules you will meet
- Jokers
- Some groups add the two jokers to the deck as the highest trumps. Agree on which cards come out so each player still gets 13.
- Blind nil
- A bid made before looking at your cards, usually only allowed when the team is well behind. It scores 200 or loses 200.
- Bag limit
- Ten bags is standard. Some groups play with five.
- Shorter games
- Play to 250 or 300 if you do not have an hour.
- Minimum team bid
- Some tables require a team to bid at least 4 between them.
Settle which of these you are using before you deal the first hand. Spades has more house rules than most card games, and the arguments are about bags and nil more than anything else.
Questions
Quick answers
- What is a bag in Spades?
- A bag, sometimes called a sandbag or an overtrick, is any trick your team wins beyond its bid. Each bag is worth 1 point, but when a team collects ten bags in total across the game, it loses 100 points and the count starts again at zero.
- How does a nil bid work?
- A player who bids nil is promising to win no tricks at all. If they succeed, their team scores 100 points. If they win even one trick, the team loses 100. The partner still bids normally and plays for their own number.
- Can you lead spades at any time?
- No. You cannot lead a spade until spades have been broken, meaning a spade was played on an earlier trick because someone could not follow suit. The exception is a hand with nothing but spades.
- How many points do you need to win Spades?
- 500 is the usual target. Some groups play to 250 or 300 for a shorter game. If both teams pass the target in the same hand, the team with the higher score wins.
- Is Spades played with partners?
- Standard Spades is for four players in two teams of two, with partners sitting opposite each other. There are versions for two and three players, but they change the rules, and these notes cover the four-player partnership game.