How to Play Spades

The basics

Four players sit around the table. You and the player across from you are partners. A standard 52-card deck is dealt, 13 cards each. Spades are always the trump suit. Card rank from high to low is A, K, Q, J, 10 down to 2.

Bidding

Before play, each player looks at their hand and bids how many tricks they expect to win, from 1 to 13. Your bid and your partner's bid are added together to make your team's contract. Count your aces, kings and long strong suits, and expect to win tricks with spades.

Playing a trick

The player to the dealer's left leads any card except a spade. Everyone else must follow the suit led if they can. If you have none of that suit, you may play any card, including a spade, which will usually win the trick. The highest spade wins, or the highest card of the suit led if no spade was played. The winner leads the next trick.

Spades cannot be led until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, which is called breaking spades. After that, anyone can lead one.

Nil and Blind Nil

A Nil bid means you promise to win no tricks at all. If you succeed, your team scores 100 points. If you win even one trick, you lose 100. Your partner still plays for their own bid and often helps by taking tricks you would otherwise be forced to win.

Blind Nil is the same bet made before you look at your cards, worth 200 points either way. It is usually used by a team that is far behind.

Scoring

Make your contract and you score 10 points for each trick bid. Each extra trick is a bag worth 1 point. Collect 10 bags and you lose 100 points, so do not bid too low on purpose. Miss your contract and you lose 10 points for each trick bid. The first team to reach 500 points wins, and a team that falls to minus 200 loses.