Work with your partner to collect tricks.
Strategy
Read. The. Table. The first thing any aspiring Spades player needs to develop is a sense for what the other players are holding. An oddly timed face card could offer insight on the suits you should target (or avoid) moving forward.
How to Play
- Pair off into two teams of two players, and then deal the entire deck, face down, so that each player has 13 cards.
- Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, each player predicts the number of Tricks they will win during the hand. Each team then add their predictions together. This is their Bid.
- The player to the left of the dealer plays a card of their choosing, and working clockwise, each successive player then plays a card of their choosing, following suit. The player who plays the highest card wins.
- If a player cannot follow suit, they have two options: either to play a Spade, a trump card which wins the trick, or discard a card of a different suit. If multiple trump cards are played, the highest trump card wins. If you have them, both Jokers count as trump cards, with the full color joke being the highest card in the game, followed by the black-and-white joker.
- The winner of trick then begins the next round of play by playing a card of their choosing, and play continues until all 13 tricks are collected.
- Once everyone is out of cards, each team scores their hand. If a team reached their bid, they’re awarded 10 points for each trick correctly bid, and 1 point for each trick over their bid. (For example, 7 tricks on a bid of 5 is worth 52 points.) If a team did not reach their bid, they are docked 10 points for each trick bid, regardless of how many points won. (For example, on a bid of 7 tricks, anything less than 7 costs 70 points). A bid of zero tricks, or “Nil” is worth 100 points if successful, but costs 100 points if unsuccessful. Both players bidding Nil is worth 400 points if successful, but costs 200 points if unsuccessful. A bid of zero without looking at ones hand, or “Blind Nil” is worth 200 points if successful, and costs 200 points if unsuccessful. Both partners successfully bidding blind Nil ends the game, but costs 400 points when unsuccessful.
- Teams continue to play until one team reaches 500 points.
