Playing Spades
Spades is a relatively modern game which is widely played at online card sites. It is said to have been derived from Bridge, but only spades are always trumps. It is a fascinating game of bidding to win points or playing to pass penalty points to the opponents.
The basic game is four-handed, with two competing partnerships. Partners sit across the table from each other.
A standard 52-card deck of playing cards is used. Aces are high, followed in rank by king, queen, jack, ten, and so on down to twos. Spades are always trump. Each player is dealt 13 cards.
The object is to score the most points; usually, a limit of 500 points is set, so that the first team to reach 500 wins.
The Bidding
Beginning with the player to the left of the dealer and proceeding clockwise, each player makes a bid indicating the number of tricks they expect to take for that hand. There is only one round of bidding, and each partnership aims to take the same number of tricks during the play of the hand as the total of their two bids.
"Nil," a bid of zero, is different from other bids in that it is an individual contract rather than simply part of a partnership bidding total
The Play
After the bidding, the player to the left of the dealer leads any card except a spade. This card is the opening lead.
Moving clockwise around the table, each player plays a card, which must, if possible, be of the same suit that was led. The four cards played constitute a trick. The winner of the trick leads the first card to the next trick, and play continues until all 13 tricks have been completed.
A trick that contains no spades is won by the highest card of the suit originally led. Spades are always trump; therefore, any spade will beat any non-spade, regardless of rank. A trick containing more than one spade is won by the highest spade.
No player may lead a spade until spades have been "broken"-that is, until at least one spade has been played. unless a player on lead only has spades and must lead one.
Scoring
If a partnership takes at least as many tricks as it bids, it scores 10 points for every trick bid plus one point for every additional trick taken, if any. Except when there is a nil bid, the tricks won by a partnership are combined. So if one partner bids 2 and the other bids 4, and each of them takes three tricks they have made their combined bid of 6 and earn 60 points.
If a partnership takes fewer tricks than its combined bid, it loses 10 points for every trick bid. Bidding a total of 6 and taking anywhere from zero to six tricks would result in a score of -60.
A nil bid is an individual contract to take no tricks. A nil bidder scores 100 points if successful, -100 if unsuccessful The nil bidder's partner scores separately on that hand, based on only their bid and tricks taken. Tricks taken by a nil bidder do not count toward their partner's total.
"Blind nil" (sometimes called "double nil") is a bid that should be reserved for desperate situations. It's a nil bid that a player makes before seeing his or her hand. If successful, it scores 200 points; if unsuccessful, -200.
"Bags" (or "sandbags") are the single points scored for each trick taken in excess of what was bid. As a penalty for overly conservative bidding, an accumulation of 10 bags results in a penalty of 100 points.
Where to play Spades
- CardSharp:
- Canasis Free Games:
- Dracis:
- Freeverse
- Game Peak
- Games 4 Money
- Gamesville free games online:
- Hardwood Spades
- I lovespades
- Nidink ~ The Online Home of a Gaming Community
- PlayOK Online Games (previously known as Kurnik Online)
- My Spades
- Mystic Island:.
- Pogo:
- Renaissance Games Online
- Safe Harbor Games:
- Spadester - play for money
- Superior Spades
- Tams11 Online Gaming Lobby:
- The Gamer Shack:
- The ZOO Gaming Community:
- World Gaming Center:
- Yahoo! Games:
- Zone MSN Games: