Spades Rules

Spades rules at a glance

That table is the whole game in miniature. The rest of this page explains each line, with the reasons behind the rules and the places where tables disagree. If you would rather learn by doing, the beginner's guide to how to play spades walks through one hand trick by trick, and the spades cheat sheet fits everything on one printable page.

Players, partners and the deck

Spades is played by four people in two partnerships. Partners sit across from each other, so play goes around the table alternating teams: you, an opponent, your partner, the other opponent. You never see your partner's cards and you are not allowed to tell them what you hold. You talk through your bid and the cards you play.

At Spades Night, any seat nobody takes is filled by a bot, so a table of one, two or three friends still gets a full game.

The House Rules deck: jokers and deuces

Our default deck is still 52 cards, but it is not the standard 52. Take out the 2♥ (two of hearts) and 2♣ (two of clubs), then add both jokers. This version goes by "jokers and deuces", "joker joker deuce deuce" or JJDD, and it is the way a lot of people grew up playing at the kitchen table.

The four cards at the top all count as spades:

1. Big Joker, the highest card in the deck
2. Little Joker
3. 2♦ (two of diamonds), sometimes called the big deuce
4. 2♠ (two of spades), the little deuce
5. A♠, then K♠, Q♠, J♠, 10♠ and so on down to 3♠

The 2♦ is a spade for every purpose. If spades are led and your only spade is the 2♦, you must play it. If diamonds are led, the 2♦ does not follow diamonds. That leaves diamonds with 12 cards (A♦ down to 3♦), hearts with 12 (A♥ to 3♥), clubs with 12 (A♣ to 3♣) and the trump suit with 16.

More on the joker order, and the other orders you will run into, in spades with jokers and deuces and big joker vs little joker.

The Classic deck

Classic spades uses a plain 52-card deck. Every suit has 13 cards, aces are high, and the A♠ is the top trump. On Spades Night you get Classic by switching Jokers and Deuces high off in a private table's rules. You can also mix them: jokers without deuces (2♣ and 2♦ come out, A♠ sits under the jokers) or deuces without jokers (plain 52 cards, 2♦ and 2♠ ranked above the A♠).

Card order

Within the three side suits the order is the usual one: A, K, Q, J, 10 and down to the 2 (or 3, where the 2 has been removed). Trump beats any side-suit card. When two trumps meet, the higher trump wins.

Orders vary from table to table. Some rank the 2♠ above the 2♦. Some play "deuce ace", with the 2♠ above the ace and no 2♦. Agree on it before the first deal. The full ladder with every variant is in spades card order.

The deal

Any player can deal first; online, the first dealer is picked at random. The dealer shuffles and deals the whole deck one card at a time, clockwise, starting with the player on their left. Everyone ends with 13 cards.

The deal passes to the left after every hand. In Spades Night's quick match of four hands, that means every seat deals exactly once.

Bidding

Once everyone has looked at their cards, each player bids the number of tricks they expect to win. Spades players call a trick a book, so "I've got three books" means "I'm bidding three". A bid can be any number from 1 to 13, or nil, which is a promise to take none at all.

Your bid and your partner's bid add up to your team contract. If you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, your team needs 7 books between you. It does not matter which of you takes them.

Secret and simultaneous, or in turn

In classic spades the player to the dealer's left bids first and the bidding goes around the table once. Later bidders get to hear the earlier bids and adjust.

Spades Night deals House Rules with secret, simultaneous bidding: all four players bid at the same time on a 30-second clock, and the bids flip over together once all four are in. Nobody gets the edge of bidding last, and the hand moves faster. If you prefer the classic order, switch on Sequential bidding at a private table. If your clock runs out, the game locks in the bid its bot would have made for your hand.

How to count your hand is its own topic: see how to bid in spades.

Board: the minimum contract

Board is the House Rules minimum: a team contract of less than 4 is raised to 4 automatically. If you bid 1 and your partner bids 2, your team plays for 4. This stops a team from underbidding a weak hand to farm cheap bags, and it keeps both teams honest on thin hands. Board does not apply when both partners bid nil. Read more on board in spades.

Nil

A nil bid says you will not take a single trick this hand. Make it and your team scores +100. Take even one book and it's −100.

Nil is scored separately from your partner. Your partner's bid becomes the team contract by itself, and board still applies to it: if you bid nil and your partner bids 2, your partner is playing for 4 books alone.

When a nil fails, the tricks the nil player took do not count toward the partner's contract. At our table they count as bags. Some tables let them help the partner's bid instead. The full picture is on the nil page, and how to play one (and how to protect your partner's) is in nil strategy.

Blind nil

Blind nil is nil bid before you look at your cards. It pays double: +200 made, −200 broken. It is a comeback bid, so at Spades Night it is only offered when your team is behind by 100 points or more. The offer appears at the deal while your cards are still face down. Look at them and it's gone. See blind nil.

Double nil

If both partners bid nil, the team has no contract at all. Each nil is scored on its own (+100 or −100 each), board does not apply, and any trick the pair takes is a bag. It's rare and it's a gamble. See double nil.

Playing the tricks

The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. Play goes clockwise, each player adding one card, and the highest card wins the trick. The winner leads the next one. Thirteen tricks make a hand.

Following suit

You must follow the suit that was led if you can. If hearts are led and you hold any heart, you play a heart. It can be your highest or your lowest; the only rule is that it's a heart.

If you have no card of the led suit (you are void in it), you may play anything. You can cut (trump) with a spade to try to win the trick, or throw away a low card from another suit. See void and trump.

Remember the jokers and the 2♦ are spades. When spades are led and you hold only the Little Joker as trump, the Little Joker must come out.

Who wins the trick

• If any trump was played, the highest trump wins.
• If no trump was played, the highest card of the suit that was led wins. A higher card of a different side suit wins nothing.

So if K♥ is led, you can't follow, and you drop the A♣, the K♥ still wins. The ace of the wrong suit is just a discard.

Breaking spades

You may not lead a spade until spades have been broken, which happens the first time anyone plays a trump on a trick led in another suit. Before that, leads must come from hearts, diamonds or clubs. The one exception: if your hand holds nothing but trump, you may lead one (and that breaks spades too).

Jokers and the 2♦ follow the same rule. You can't open a trick with the Big Joker before spades are broken. The first lead of every hand is always a non-spade. More in breaking spades.

No reneging here

At a real table, failing to follow suit when you could have is a renege, and it costs a penalty, usually three books. At Spades Night the game only lets you play legal cards, so a renege can't happen. See renege for how tables handle it.

Scoring

Scoring happens at the end of each hand, once all 13 tricks are played. Each team is scored separately.

Making your contract

If your team takes at least as many books as its contract, you score 10 points per book bid. Each book over the contract is an overtrick, worth 1 point, and it also adds 1 bag to your running bag count.

Bid 5, take 7: 50 points for the contract plus 2 for the overtricks, 52 in total, and 2 bags.

Getting set

If your team takes fewer books than its contract, you are set and lose 10 points per book bid. Bid 5, take 4: minus 50. The four books you did take score nothing and add no bags. See set.

Bags and the 10-bag penalty

Bags pile up across hands. Every time your team's bag count reaches 10, you lose 100 points and the count drops by 10. Extra bags carry over: a team sitting on 8 bags that picks up 4 more pays 100 and keeps 2.

That penalty is what makes spades a game of accuracy rather than a race to take tricks. A team that overtakes by two books every hand is giving away 100 points every five hands. The full story, including the art of sandbagging, is on bags in spades.

Nil and blind nil scores

The nil score is added to whatever the partner's contract earned or lost. Tricks taken by a failed nil count as bags for the team.

Boston

A Boston is one team taking all 13 books. At Spades Night it earns a +200 bonus on top of the normal score for the hand, and the announcer lets the whole table know. It is not an automatic win. Other tables use the word differently; see Boston.

10 for 200 (optional)

Some tables pay a flat 200 for a big contract. Switch on 10 for 200 at a private table and a team contract of 10 or more, if made, scores 200 instead of 100-something (and costs 200 if set). Overtricks still count as bags. It is off by default. See 10 for 200.

A scored hand, start to finish

Your team bids 4 and 3 (contract 7). The other team bids nil and 4 (contract 4, board already met).

• Your team takes 8 books: 70 + 1 = 71, and 1 bag.
• Their nil player takes 1 book. Their other player takes 4. The contract of 4 is made: +40. The nil fails: −100. The nil player's book becomes a bag: +1. Total −59, and 1 bag.

The spades scoring guide has five more worked hands and a way to keep score on paper.

Winning the game

The classic target is 500 points. After each hand, if either team has reached the target, the higher score wins. If both teams cross it on the same hand, the higher score still wins; an exact tie means you keep playing. Shorter games play to 300.

Spades Night adds a quick match: four hands, one deal from each seat, usually 12 to 18 minutes. The higher total after hand four wins. If it's tied, a sudden-death fifth hand decides it. Private tables can pick quick, 500 or 300.

Some tables also end the game when a team falls to minus 200. We don't use that rule: you can climb back from any score, which is exactly what blind nil is for.

House Rules vs Classic, side by side

Quick play and every table you join start on House Rules. A private table's host can change any of these before the deal, and the House Rules button puts them all back.

Common variants we don't use

Every living room has its own rules. These are the ones you are most likely to hear about, and how they differ from ours:

• Boston as an automatic win. At some tables, taking (or bidding) all 13 books wins the game outright. Ours scores +200 and play goes on.
• Bid Boston / bid 13. Some tables require a team to bid 13 to earn anything special. We score the bonus whenever a team takes all 13.
• 2♠ above 2♦. A common alternative ladder: Big Joker, Little Joker, 2♠, 2♦, A♠.
• Deuce ace. No jokers, just the 2♠ ranked above the A♠.
• Passing cards on blind nil. The blind nil bidder and partner swap one or two cards. We deal blind nil straight, no passing.
• Renege calls. At a table you can call a renege and take a three-book penalty. Online here it can't happen.
• Minus 200 loses. Not used; there is no floor.
• Failed nil helps the partner. Some tables count a failed nil's tricks toward the partner's contract. Ours counts them as bags.
• Two-, three- and six-player spades. Real games, but Spades Night is always four seats. See spades with 2 players and spades with 3 players for the tabletop rules.

The spades house rules guide covers these and more (mirrors, suicide, whiz), each with a note on whether you can turn it on here.

Timers and table manners online

Online games need a clock so nobody waits forever. At Spades Night:

• Bidding: 30 seconds, everybody at once.
• Playing a card: 15 seconds, or 5 when you have only one legal card.
• Time bank: two extra 15-second blocks per hand, spent automatically when your clock runs out.
• Blitz: shorter clocks, if the host switches it on.

You can also lock a card early: drag it to the table before your turn and it plays the moment your turn comes. If the suit led makes it illegal, it bounces back to your hand.

Want the words people shout across the table while all this happens? The spades glossary and spades table talk have you covered. Ready to try it? Deal a free hand of spades, no sign-up needed, or open it in a Discord voice channel.