How to Play Spades: Rules, Bidding and Scoring

The cards and the partners

Spades uses one standard 52-card deck with the Jokers taken out. Aces are high, so each suit runs from 2 up to ace. Spades are trumps for every hand: any spade beats any card of another suit.

Four players sit in two partnerships, with partners facing each other across the table. Partners share one score and add their bids together, but they never show each other their cards or agree on what to play. Everything a partner knows about your hand comes from your bid and the cards you play.

In Larch Hollow Spades, you sit at the bottom of the bench and Constance the pine marten sits across from you as your partner. Cornelius the hare is on your left and Agatha the rook on your right, and they are partners against you.

How to deal spades

Choose the first dealer any way you like. The dealer shuffles and deals all the cards out one at a time, clockwise, starting with the player on the dealer’s left, so everyone has 13. The deal passes one seat to the left for the next hand.

Sort your hand by suit as you pick it up. In Larch Hollow Spades your cards arrive sorted diamonds, clubs, hearts and then spades on the right, each from low to high. Agatha deals the first hand of your first game, so you bid first and lead the first trick.

Bidding basics: how to count a hand

Starting with the player on the dealer’s left and going clockwise, everyone bids once: the number of tricks they expect to take, from 1 to 13, or nil for none at all. Nobody may pass, and there is no second round. Your side’s contract is your bid plus your partner’s, and that is the number your side has to take together.

The simplest way to count is the quick count in the table: each ace and each king with a smaller card beside it should take a trick, and every spade past your third adds about one, because once the other suits run out your little spades start winning. Kings without a guard, queens, and long side suits are worth less than they look. A short side suit is worth something if you hold a spare low spade to trump with.

Bid as a side. The four bids usually add up to 10 to 12 tricks out of 13. If your partner has already bid high, there is no need to stretch; if the table’s bids already come to 12, somebody is going to fall short, so shade your own bid down a little.

In Larch Hollow Spades your bid starts at the quick count of your aces, kings and spades past three. Tap minus or plus to change it and tap Bid, or tap Nil. Constance’s bid shows on the bid panel as soon as she has made it, and the hint gives a fuller estimate with its reasons.

Nil and blind nil

A nil bid promises that you will take no tricks at all. If you manage it, your side scores 100; if you take even one trick, your side loses 100. Your partner’s bid stands on its own and is scored as usual, and any tricks the nil bidder takes count as bags, never toward the partner’s contract.

Bid nil with no aces, no high spades, few spades of any kind and plenty of low cards. Your partner’s job then changes: instead of making their own bid as cheaply as possible, they play high in front of you and take the tricks you might otherwise be stuck with.

Blind nil is a nil bid made before you look at your cards. It scores 200 if you take no tricks and costs 200 if you take any. Most players allow it only for a side that is 100 or more points behind, and after the bidding the blind nil bidder passes two cards to their partner, who passes two back. In Larch Hollow Spades blind nil is off by default and can be turned on in Settings. When it is on and your side is 100 or more behind, your cards stay face down until you choose: bid blind nil, or look at your cards and bid as usual.

Spades rules: playing a trick

The player on the dealer’s left leads to the first trick. Play goes clockwise, and each player in turn adds one card. You must follow suit, playing a card of the suit that was led, if you can. If you cannot, you may play any card: a spade to trump the trick, or any other card to throw it away.

When all four cards are down, the highest spade wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. A card of another suit can never win. The winner leads to the next trick, and after 13 tricks the hand is over.

In Larch Hollow Spades, the cards you may play are outlined and the others dim, and a card you cannot play says why when you tap it. Tap a card to pick it up and tap it again to play it. Each name plate shows that player’s tricks taken against their bid, so you can see at a glance who still needs what.

Breaking spades

Spades may not be led until spades are broken: until a spade has been played to an earlier trick, usually by a player who could not follow suit and trumped. The one exception is a leader who holds nothing but spades, who may lead one. So the first trick is always led in another suit unless the leader holds only spades.

Some tables let a spade be led at any time. Larch Hollow Spades follows the standard rule by default, with the open rule as an option in Settings. The small spade on the score board darkens once spades are broken.

How to score a hand of spades

Each side counts the tricks taken by its partners who did not bid nil. A side that takes at least its contract scores 10 points for every trick it bid, plus 1 point for every trick over, called a bag or an overtrick. A side that takes fewer than its contract is set and loses 10 points for every trick it bid. Nil bids are then scored on their own: plus 100 for a nil made, minus 100 for a nil lost, or 200 either way for blind nil.

For example, you bid 4 and Constance bids 3, a contract of 7. Cornelius bids nil and Agatha bids 4. You take 5 tricks, Constance 3, Cornelius 1 and Agatha 4. Your side took 8 against 7: the contract is made, for 70 points plus 1 bag, 71 in all. Agatha made her 4 for 40 points, but Cornelius’s nil failed, which costs 100, and his trick counts as a bag, so their side scores minus 59 for the hand.

In Larch Hollow Spades, a score card after every hand shows both sides’ bids, tricks, contract points, nils and bags beside the new totals, and the score board above the bench opens the score sheet, with every hand of the game and the running totals.

Bags and the ten-bag penalty

Bags are the spare tricks: every trick a side takes beyond its contract, plus any trick a nil bidder takes. Each one is worth a single point when it arrives, which looks generous, but the count carries over from hand to hand, and every time a side’s bags reach 10 it loses 100 points and ten bags come off the count.

For example, your side has 8 bags and makes its contract with 3 tricks to spare. That is 11 bags: you lose 100 points and start again from 1. This is why good players bid what they can take and then stop taking tricks once the contract is safe. Deliberately feeding an opponent tricks they do not want, so that their bags pile up, is called sandbagging them.

In Larch Hollow Spades, the score board shows each side’s bags beside its score, and the score card marks the hand when ten bags cost a side 100.

Winning a game of spades

Play goes on hand after hand until, at the end of a hand, a side has reached 500 points or more. The side with the higher score then wins, even if both sides passed 500 on the same hand. If the two sides are exactly level, Larch Hollow Spades plays another hand. For a shorter evening, Settings offers a game to 300.

Common spades rule variations

Spades has as many house rules as it has tables. Some end the game early when a side falls to minus 200, some score a double nil made by both partners as 400 or as the whole game, and the minimum bid, the value of blind nil and the size of the bag penalty all vary from table to table. The table lists the variations Larch Hollow Spades offers, with its default first.

Controls in Larch Hollow Spades

On a phone or tablet, tap minus or plus on the bid panel to set your bid and tap Bid, or tap Nil. In play, tap a card to pick it up and tap it again to play it; Settings can switch to playing a card on one tap. After a hand, tap Next hand. With a mouse, click the same way.

On a keyboard, while you bid the up and down arrows or plus and minus change your bid and B bids it. In play, the arrow keys move along your hand and Enter or Space picks or plays the card in focus. N deals the next hand, S opens the score sheet, L shows the last trick, U undoes and H shows a hint.

Undo takes back the card you just played, as long as nobody has played a card since, so no new card has been seen. Bids are final, because the whole table heard them. Hints look only at what you can see (your cards, every bid and every card played) and say why. The other players wait while a menu is open, and their speed can be set to Relaxed.

How strong are Cornelius, Constance and Agatha?

All three computer players play at the level you choose, so Constance is as strong as your opponents. Gentle bids its aces, its guarded kings and its spades past three, now and then a trick high or low, never bids nil, and three times in ten simply plays a legal card at random; otherwise it wins a trick as cheaply as it can and plays low behind its partner. Steady values its hand trick by trick, bids nil with a hand that cannot win anything, covers its partner’s nil, plays high in third seat and low in second, and never overtakes a nil bidder’s winning card. Sharp plays like Steady and also counts every card and every void, adjusts its bid for its partner’s bid and the bags, bids nil when the hand allows, hunts an opponent’s nil with low leads, ducks bags once its contract is safe, and bids blind nil when far behind if the rule is on.

We measured the levels with our own simulation of 1,000 games to 500 for each pairing, one partnership against another, with the seats and the first dealer moving round the table. The scripted beginner bids one trick for every ace and king plus one for every spade past three, never bids nil, leads an ace when it has one and otherwise its lowest card, wins as cheaply as it can, and trumps with its lowest winning spade when it cannot follow suit. It pays no attention to its partner, the bags or the cards already played. An even match wins about half the games.

So a newcomer playing simple, sensible cards with a Gentle partner wins a little more than half their games against a Gentle pair. Steady and Sharp are real opponents: with a partner of the same level the beginner wins about three games in ten against Steady and one in four against Sharp. In the Sharp against Steady games, the Sharp pair bid nil 1,644 times and made 1,372 of them, and paid the ten-bag penalty 285 times to Steady’s 765. These are computer players, not people, so treat the numbers as a guide.

Partnership tips

Listen to your partner’s bid. A partner who bids 5 or more almost certainly holds high spades or several aces and kings; a partner who bids 1 or 2 is counting on you. Plan your play around what the two bids together say.

Do not win your partner’s tricks. When your partner’s card is already winning and nobody after you can beat it, play your lowest card and save your winners for the tricks your side would otherwise lose.

Cover a nil. When your partner bids nil, your contract becomes the second priority. Play high when your partner might be forced to win, lead high cards in suits where they may hold a stray high card, and keep your low cards for later.

Lead toward your partner’s strength. If your partner has shown they are out of a suit and still holds spades, leading that suit lets them trump it.

Beginner spades strategy

Count your sure tricks first and bid them, not the tricks you hope for. A made contract with one bag beats a brave bid that falls one short by far more than the 10 points it looks like.

Lead your side aces early, before anyone runs out of the suit and trumps them. Kings are worth leading once the ace has gone.

Keep track of the spades. There are 13; count them as they fall, along with your own, so you know when your queen or jack has become the highest one left.

Use a short suit. If you hold only one or two cards of a side suit, play them early; once you are out of that suit, you can trump it with a small spade.

Common spades mistakes

Bidding every king. A king with no smaller card beside it often falls under the ace, and a king in a long suit often gets trumped.

Taking every trick you can. Once your contract is safe, each extra trick is a bag, and the tenth bag costs 100 points. Duck under the winning card instead.

Trumping your partner’s winner. If your partner is already winning the trick, a spade from you wastes a trump and maybe a trick.

Leading spades too early. Unless you hold the top spades or want to draw the opponents’ trumps, leading spades usually gives your high spades away cheaply.

Bidding nil with an ace or a high spade. Those cards almost always win a trick at some point; nil wants low cards and a short spade suit.

Spades tips

Watch the bags on the score board. With seven or more bags on your side, bid a trick more rather than collect three spare ones.

If the bids add up to 13, every trick matters: somebody will be set if a single trick goes astray.

When an opponent bids nil, lead low cards in suits they may hold, and let their high cards win. One trick taken is worth 100 points to your side.

Use the hint to learn. In Larch Hollow Spades it names a bid or a card with the reason, using only what you can see at the table, and the last trick button and the score sheet let you check what has happened.