Spades guide
Spades vs Hearts: What's the Difference?
Spades and hearts are both four-player trick-taking games with a standard deck, but they pull in opposite directions. In spades you play with a partner, spades are trump, and you bid tricks and try to make them. In hearts you play alone, there's no trump, and you try to avoid taking hearts and the Q♠.
If you grew up with hearts on a family computer and now your friends want to play spades, you're closer than you think. Both are four-player trick-taking games with a standard deck. Both make you follow suit. But the goals point in opposite directions, and that changes everything about how you play. For the full rules of our game, see the spades rules.
The short version
| Spades | Hearts | |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 4, in two partnerships | 4 (also 3–6), everyone alone |
| Deck | 52 cards (some tables add jokers) | 52 cards |
| Trump | Spades, always | None |
| Bidding | Yes: bid the tricks you'll take | No bidding |
| Goal | Make your team's bid | Avoid hearts and the Q♠ |
| Passing cards | Usually none | Pass 3 cards before most hands |
| Big swing | Nil, blind nil, Boston | Shooting the moon |
| Game ends | A target score (often 500) | Someone reaches 100; lowest wins |
Partners vs every player for themselves
The biggest difference is the partnership. In spades, you sit across from your partner and your bids add up to a team contract. Your partner's ace can save your hand, and your spade can protect their king. Half the skill of spades is reading and helping your partner.
Hearts has no partners. Every player is alone, and the other three are, at best, temporary allies against whoever is winning.
Trump vs no trump
In spades, spades are always trump. If you can't follow the suit that was led, you can cut with a spade and win the trick. Spades can't be led until they've been broken, and at our table the jokers and the 2♦ (two of diamonds) count as spades too. Read more on trump.
Hearts has no trump suit at all. When you can't follow suit, you discard, and the highest card of the led suit always wins. That's why hearts players love being void: it's a chance to dump a painful card on someone else.
Winning tricks vs avoiding them
In spades you want tricks, but the right number of them. You bid how many you'll take, make your bid for 10 points per trick, and extra tricks become bags that eventually cost you 100 points. Too few and you're set.
In hearts you mostly want to avoid tricks that contain points. Each heart is 1 point and the Q♠ is 13. At the end of the game, the lowest score wins.
The queen of spades
In hearts, the Q♠ is the card everyone fears: 13 points to whoever takes it. Much of hearts strategy is about hiding from it or passing it along.
In spades, the Q♠ is just a decent trump. Nobody panics when it falls.
Bidding
Spades has bidding: every player bids the number of tricks (books) they expect to win. At Spades Night everyone bids at the same time, in secret, and the bids flip together. You can also bid nil, promising zero tricks for a 100-point bonus.
Hearts has no bidding. You look at your hand, pass three cards (to the left, right, across, or not at all, rotating each hand), and play.
Shooting the moon vs running a Boston
Hearts has one famous escape hatch: take every heart and the Q♠, and instead of eating 26 points, everyone else gets them. That's shooting the moon.
Spades has its own big play: take all 13 tricks as a team. That's a Boston. At Spades Night it's worth a 200-point bonus on top of your contract. Some tables treat it as an instant win; ours doesn't.
How a hand feels
A hand of spades starts with a count ("I've got four books, maybe five"), then turns into a quiet negotiation with your partner through the cards you lead. The tension is whether your team makes its number.
A hand of hearts starts with a pass and a plan to get rid of danger cards. The tension is who gets stuck with the queen.
Mix-ups when you switch games
Hearts players picking up spades tend to make the same three mistakes in their first few hands:
- Ducking out of habit. In hearts, losing a trick is usually good. In spades, if your team bid 6 and you duck a trick you could have won, you might get set. Win the books you need.
- Dumping high cards. Throwing away an ace when you're void is a classic hearts move. In spades that ace might be one of your bid books.
- Forgetting trump. When you can't follow suit in spades, a low spade usually wins the trick. There's no "safe discard" instinct to lean on.
Spades players moving to hearts make the opposite mistakes: cutting in with high cards and taking tricks full of points.
Which should you learn first?
If you know hearts, spades will feel familiar in about one hand. Follow-suit rules are the same, and card sense carries over. The new parts are trump and bidding.
If you're choosing a game for a group of four friends, spades is the better social game: partners give everyone someone to celebrate with and someone to blame. Start with our beginner's guide to spades, then play a quick four-hand match with bots or friends.
Can you play both online?
Spades Night is spades only: four seats, two partnerships, House Rules with jokers by default and a classic ace-high option. It runs free in your browser with no sign-up, or inside a Discord voice call.
Questions people ask
Is spades the same as hearts?
No. Both are trick-taking games, but spades has partners, a trump suit and bidding, and you want to win the tricks you bid. Hearts has no partners, no trump and no bidding, and you try to avoid points.
Which is easier, spades or hearts?
Hearts is quicker to start because there's no bidding. Spades takes a hand or two longer to learn, mostly bidding and bags, but many players find the partnership makes it more fun.
Is the queen of spades bad in spades?
No. In spades the Q♠ is simply a trump card. It's the hearts game where the queen of spades costs 13 points.
Can you shoot the moon in spades?
Not by that name. Shooting the moon is a hearts move. The nearest thing in spades is a Boston, taking all 13 tricks, which is worth a 200-point bonus at Spades Night.