The Pack
The standard 52-card pack is used.
Rank of Suits
The spade suit is always trump.
Rank of Cards
A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
Object of the Game
To win at least the number of tricks bid.
The Deal
The first dealer is chosen by a draw for high card, and thereafter the turn to deal proceeds clockwise. The entire deck is dealt one at a time, face down, beginning on the dealer's left. The players then pick up their cards and arrange them by suits.
The Bidding
Each player decides how many tricks he will be able to take. The player to the dealer's left starts the bidding and, in turn, each player states how many tricks he expects to win. There is only one round of bidding, and the minimum bid is One. Every player must make a bid; no player may pass. No suit is named in the bid, for as the name of the game implies, spades are always trump.
The Play
The game is scored by hands, and the winner must make a certain number of points, which is decided before the game begins. Five hundred points is common, but 200 points is suitable for a short game. The player on the dealer's left makes the opening lead, and players must follow suit, if possible. If a player cannot follow suit, he may play a trump or discard. The trick is won by the player who plays the highest trump or if no trump was played, the player who played the highest card in the suit led. The player who wins the trick leads next. Play continues until none of the players have any cards left. Each hand is worth 13 tricks. Spades cannot be led unless played previously or player to lead has nothing but Spades in his hand.
How to Keep Score
For making the contract (the number of tricks bid), the player scores 10 points for each trick bid, plus 1 point for each overtrick.
For example, if the player's bid is Seven and he makes seven tricks, the score would be 70. If the bid was Five and the player won eight tricks, the score would be 53 points: 50 points for the bid, and 3 points for the three overtricks. In some games, overtricks are called "bags" and a deduction of 100 points is made every time a player accumulates 10 bags. Thus, the object is always to fulfill the bid exactly.
If the player "breaks contract," that is, if he takes fewer than the number of tricks bid, the score is 0. For example, if a player bids Four and wins only three tricks, no points are awarded.
One of the players is the scorer and writes the bids down, so that during the play and for the scoring afterward, this information will be available to all the players. When a hand is over, the scores should be recorded next to the bids, and a running score should be kept so that players can readily see each other's total points. If there is a tie, then all players participate in one more round of play.
Lekoa Persley
November 12, 2017 at 8:57 pmIf you don’t have a trump in your hand but you have face cards can you still play or do you throw your hand in?
The Bicycle Team
November 13, 2017 at 2:52 pmHello, If you require more in depth information than we offer on our how to play section of our website, we can suggest – Bicycle Official Rules of Card Games, available @
https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Official-Rules-Card-Games/dp/1889752061 Thank You, The Bicycle Team
Karl Goethebier
April 29, 2017 at 10:38 amWell, it seems that it would be the best to start playing Spades with that very basic rule set, as described. Difficult enough. But you write "…the minimum bid is One". How to handle the scenario if one partner bids NIL? Skip? Not available within this basic rule set? Thanks for any hints and regards, Karl. P.S.: BTW, Is there any serious scoring template available? Something "genuine" if you know what i mean? Consider you try to learn the very german game Skat with all it’s local variations and notations…
George Boychev
March 27, 2017 at 8:18 amThere are surprisingly many variations of spades and the above only covers the standard pairs format. Here’s a bit more info for further reading on the different variations of a traditional game of Spades – https://vipspades.com/blog/different-variations-of-spades/
Joshua Nance
December 22, 2016 at 8:59 amOn the app I have of spades,what does nill mean. It is driving me crazy trying to figure it out. Thanks..
Chad Meyer
January 5, 2017 at 4:25 pmIt means that you play with the intent to lose every book (trick). Going “nil” successfully get you 100 points.
Chris Sitler
July 11, 2016 at 4:57 pmCan this version of Spades be played with fewer or more than four players? If so what do you do with the extra cards not dealt?
Heather Garner
October 13, 2017 at 12:21 amYou can play Cut-Throat. It is 3 players. Remove the 2 of clubs. Each person is dealt 17 cards. There are no partners, so if you bid 5, it is up to you to take them.
Jack Crow
May 23, 2017 at 8:56 pmYeah, you can play with three or even two people. In three-handed you can either just deal and put the last card aside or leave out the two of clubs. There is a really cool app found here that you can play three-handed spades… https://www.skullwink.com/cutthroat-spades
Jack Crow
May 22, 2017 at 1:02 amYep, in fact here is a link to a free app where you can do just that…with Pirates!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cutthroat-spades/id1029168774?mt=8
Felix Muentes Jr
June 15, 2016 at 4:06 pmI was hoping someone can guide me a little bit here.
I didn’t see a reference to rules regarding bidding “blind”. In particular I was interested to find out what happens when you bid Blind & make books over. Should they count towards the 10 overbids, when you are penalized?
I would appreciate some guidance on this.
Thank you
Benjamin Dolezal
May 29, 2016 at 3:25 amThis explanation doesn’t mention bidding blind nil; otherwise, very good basic rulebook.
charlotte thompson
April 24, 2016 at 5:28 pmcan I play now
Garret Robinson
April 1, 2016 at 12:34 amThere is a bidding variation I’ve seen several times. The player to the left of the dealer and his or her partner as a team talk semi-openly on the number of tricks they can take as a team. Then the dealers team follows with their team bid. Obviously discussion is limited to numbers e.g.: player 1 “I have 3 maybe 4.” player 1s parter responds “I have 2 maybe 3.” In this example most players would combine each “maybe” into 1 trick and agree to go 3.5 + 2.5 = 6. This variation gives a slight advantage to the dealing team as they bid last and can pick up clues from the opponents discussion.
Perry Lichtinger
February 11, 2016 at 1:38 amYour explaination of scoring points seems wrong. When you don’t get your bid, you get set negatively 10 for every trick you bid. So bid 3 get 2 score -30
The Bicycle Team
February 11, 2016 at 8:45 pmHi Perry,
Thanks for catching that! We have heard of it played both ways. We will add this to the rules.
Thanks!
– The Bicycle Team
Peggy Kessler
November 18, 2015 at 1:55 amNot so much a comment as a question. What happens if a player breaks trumps before a trump card has been played and that player still has another suit in his hand he can play?
daniel kattner
May 22, 2016 at 11:47 amIf the player Trump’s with another suit in there hand it is called a “renig” and that player has to give three books (tricks) to the opposing team and if the opposing team gets bags from those book they won’t lose points from them
The Bicycle Team
November 19, 2015 at 3:31 pmHi Peggy,
Great question. There are various family rules for this, but here is typically how it is played. You can’t open with trump until trump is broken. If you can’t follow suit, you most certainly can play a trump card to win the trick. First and foremost, you must follow suit first if you are able to. So let’s say diamonds is led and I don’t have a diamond to follow suit, but I have hearts, spades, and clubs. I can lay any one of those cards down. If I laid a spade (trump) and this was the first one played for that hand, that would be considering opening up trump or breaking trump, so now a player can lead with trump.