Spades
Quick Pitch
Spades is a partnership trick-taking game where spades are always trump — partners bid on how many tricks they'll win together, then must deliver on that promise.
Hook
You and your partner look at your hands separately and each bid how many tricks you think you can win. Add them together and that's your team's target. Win fewer than you bid and you lose big. Win more and you score small bonuses for each extra trick — but collect too many extras over the game and you'll get "bagged" and lose points. Spades rewards accurate hand-reading and coordinated play, and the nil bid (bidding zero tricks) is one of the most exciting moves in card games when it works.
Equipment Needed
- One standard 52-card deck
- Paper and pencil for score tracking
- Score sheet with space for bids and tricks
Setup
- Shuffle deck thoroughly
- Deal 13 cards to each player, one at a time, in clockwise order
- Set a target score (typically 500 points to win)
- Establish play order
Rules
Objective
Be the partnership with the highest score. Score points by making your bid exactly or overtricking while avoiding undertricks. First partnership to reach the target score wins.
Bidding
- Bid determination: Each player bids the number of tricks they expect to win (0-13). Bids must be based on their own hand only; partners cannot discuss openly
- Bid order: Players bid in turn after looking at their hand
- Nil bid: A player can bid "Nil" (zero tricks). If successful, the Nil bidder scores 100 bonus points. If unsuccessful, the partnership loses 100 points
- Blind Nil (optional variant): Nil bid before seeing any cards; successful Blind Nil scores 200 points
- Double Nil (optional variant): Both partners bid Nil; requires both succeeding for 200 point bonus
- Partner's bid: After both partners bid, each partnership's bids are added for the team contract
Gameplay
- Lead: Player to dealer's left leads the first trick
- Following suit: Players must follow the suit led if able. If unable and Spades haven't been broken (led for the first time), players cannot lead Spades unless their hand contains only Spades
- Spades broken: Once a Spade is played (not as a lead), Spades are "broken" and can be led thereafter
- Trick winner: Highest card of the suit led wins; if Spades were played, highest Spade wins
- Collecting tricks: The winner of each trick leads the next trick
- All tricks: Continue until all 13 tricks are played
Scoring
Tricks made:
- Making your bid exactly: 10 points per trick bid
- Example: Bid 7 tricks, make 7 tricks = 70 points
- Making more tricks than bid: Overtricks score 1 point each
- Example: Bid 7, make 9 = 70 + 2 = 72 points
- Not making your bid: Lose 10 points per trick bid (undertrick penalty)
- Example: Bid 7, make 6 = -70 points
Nil bids:
- Nil made: 100 points
- Nil failed: -100 points
- Blind Nil made: 200 points (variant)
- Blind Nil failed: -200 points (variant)
Bags (undertricks):
- Some variants include "bag" penalties: Accumulating 10 bags (overtricks) costs 100 points
Expert Player
Tips
- Accurate bidding: Bid conservatively unless you're confident. Missing your bid is costly
- Honor evaluation: Count quick tricks (cards that will likely win immediately)
- Nil bidding strategy:
- Bid Nil with low cards and good passing capability
- Avoid Nil if you hold high Spades or unguarded honors
- Time Nil bids strategically when your hand distribution is favorable
- Partnership communication: While not allowed during bidding, partners build trust through consistent, predictable play
- Spade management: Save Spades strategically. Use them to win tricks you need, not tricks you'd win with lower suits
- Late-game tactics: Track played cards and adjust strategy as the hand progresses
- Overtricks: When you're ahead in the contract, play conservatively to make exactly your bid
Variations
- Chicago Spades: Uses blind Nil and double Nil variants for added complexity
- Mirrors: A variant where players' cards are simpler to understand
- Ten-trick variant: Deal only 10 cards per player, leaving 4 in deck
- Three-player Spades: Deal 13, 13, 13, with one card in kitty; remove 2 of Clubs
- Six-player Spades: Deal 8 cards per player (48 cards used; 4 remain)
Learn More — History & Origins
History & Origins
Spades was developed in Cincinnati, Ohio around 1940, likely by students at the University of Cincinnati, and spread rapidly across the United States through the 1940s and 1950s. The game was explicitly designed as a simpler, more accessible alternative to Bridge: it eliminated suit bidding (spades are always trump), reduced the bidding structure to a straightforward numerical bid, and made partnership play intuitive enough that newcomers could contribute meaningfully within a few hands.
Spades spread particularly quickly in military settings during and after World War II — it was easy to learn, required only a standard deck, and worked perfectly for four players with limited space and time. By the 1960s it was established as one of the dominant American partnership card games.
Cultural Context
Spades became especially important in African American cultural life, where it developed a deep social identity as a game played at family gatherings, cookouts, and community events. The game is associated in particular with Black college culture, where it's been a fixture of campus life for decades, and it developed its own layer of shared language, bidding conventions, and social rituals within those communities.
The game's digital presence expanded enormously in the 1990s and 2000s through online platforms and gaming websites, which allowed Spades communities to maintain and grow across geographic distances. Online Spades remains one of the most-played online card games in the United States. The game's balance — simple enough to learn in one session, deep enough to reward years of partnership experience — gives it unusual staying power across casual and serious play contexts alike.