Game Rules

Basic Rules

Spades is a game played by 2 teams of 2 players (for a total of 4 players) with one standard deck of cards. The Jokers are removed, the deck is shuffled and distributed equally to all players for a total of 13 cards per player.

The player to the left of the dealer places their bid first followed by the other players in a clockwise rotation. The player who bid first chooses which suit will lead the trick. Players must match the leading suit unless they do not have a card of that suit. The card with the highest value that matches the leading suit, or a spades card, wins the trick. Winning a trick grants one point towards meeting the team bid.

To clarify the above, spades cards may only be played by a player if they do not have any cards of the leading suit. If they do so, spades become broken and from that point on, until the end of the round, anyone can lead a trick with a spades card. Spades cards trumps all other suits regardless of their value and can only be beaten by spades cards of a higher value.

After a trick concludes, the player who won the previous chooses a suit to lead with at the start of the following trick. This continues until every player has exhausted their 13 cards, for a total of 13 tricks per round. Once a round concludes, points are tallied and added to the team score.

Scoring

At the end of a round the score of the teams is tallied:

• If a team won at least as many tricks as their bid, they are granted 10 points for each of those tricks.
• If a team won more tricks than their bid, they are granted an additional point (also called a bag) for each trick past their bid. Those extra points are known as bags, or sandbags.
  • E.g. If a team places a bid of 3 and wins 5 tricks, they earn 32 points.
  • Be careful! If the bagging penalty is enabled, earning a total of 10 bags results in a penalty of 100 points that will be deducted from your score! This penalty can occur more than once!
• If a team did not manage to win enough tricks to meet their bid, they lose 10 points for each bid that they placed. 
  • E.g. If a team places a bid of 7 but only wins 3 tricks, they lose 70 points.
• If a player places a nil bid and completes the round without winning any tricks, their team is granted 100 points (if the winning score is 500 points) or 50 points (if the winning score is 250 points)!
  • Note that the player's partner may take tricks without causing the nil bid to fail.
• If a player places a nil bid and wins a trick, their team will lose 100 points (if the winning score is 500 points) or 50 points (if the winning score is 250 points) at the end of the round.

The first team to reach the winning score of 500 (or 250 depending on your settings) points wins the game. If both teams cross the 500 points threshold at the same time, the team with the higher score is declared the winner. If both teams have the exact same score, another round is played to determine a winner (a very rare occurrence). If the mercy rule is enabled in the settings, a team that reaches a negative score of -200 automatically loses.