How To Play Spades

Watch video tutorial below

Back To Spades Game

Spades is a trick-taking card game played with two sets of partners. In Spades you are partnered with the player across from you (the monkey) and against the players on your right and your left. The suit spades is always trump, which means it has a higher value than any other suit.

In any given hand, the players must choose a "bid amount" which is a prediction of the number of tricks they will take in that hand. The dealer then leads the first card. All other players must follow suit, unless they do not have a card of that suit. In that case they may either throw trump, which would automatically have a higher value than the card that lead the hand, or they can choose to throw away a card of a different suit. The only suits that can win a hand are the suit that was initially played, or trump. No player may lead with a spade until at least one spade has been used to trump a trick. The player that throws the card with the highest value takes the trick, and leads with the next card. This continues until all the cards are played.

At the end of the hand, the number of tricks a team bid collectively is compared to the number of tricks actually taken. If a team fails to meet their total bid amount, the team loses 10 points for ever card bid. If the team meets or exceeds their total bid amount, they receive 10 points for every trick bid, and 1 point for every trick taken in excess. The excess tricks are also added to the "bag" count. If this count hits a total of 10 for the game, the team that hit that mark loses 100 points.

If either of the players on a team bids nil, that team will receive 100 points if the player who bids nill does not take a single trick, and will lose 100 points if that player takes even a single trick.

The game is over when one of the teams reaches 500 points.