Spades Rules

Setup

Spades is a four-player, two-team trick-taking card game. Partners sit across from each other: seats 1 and 3 form one team, seats 2 and 4 the other. A standard 52-card deck is dealt 13 cards to each player. Spades are always trump.

Bidding

Before play, each player bids NIL or a number from 1 to 13. NIL means the player is attempting to take zero tricks. The two partners' bids add up to the team contract — the number of tricks the team must win together. Blind Nil is available only in Private Table creation, not in public Quick Match or Practice vs AI.

Play

• The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick.
• You must follow suit if you can. If you are void, play any card.
• A Spade may be played to trump a non-Spade trick (this "breaks" Spades).
• The highest card of the led suit wins — unless a Spade is played, then the highest Spade wins.
• The winner of a trick leads the next one.

Breaking Spades

Spades cannot be led until they have been broken — that is, until a Spade has been played on a trick led by another suit. If you hold only Spades, you may lead them even before they are broken.

Nil

A Nil bid wins a large bonus if you take no tricks and loses the same amount if you take even one. Your partner usually tries to cover your Nil by winning tricks you would otherwise take. See Nil in Spades for the full strategy.

Blind Nil (a Nil bid before looking at your cards, worth +200 / −200) is available only in Private Table creation — not in public Quick Match or Practice vs AI.

Bags

Tricks won above your bid are bags (overtricks), worth 1 point each. When a team collects 10 bags, they lose 100 points and the count resets. See Bags in Spades.

Scoring and winning

Make your contract for 10 points per bid trick; fall short and lose 10 times your bid. The first team to reach the target score (commonly 500) wins. Full detail on the scoring page.

Try the score calculator

Adjust the sliders to see how bidding, books, Nil, and bags translate to points — using the canonical scoring engine.

Reneging

Reneging is failing to follow suit when you could have. In Internet Spades, the server validates every card — you cannot accidentally renege. If you have a card of the led suit, the system requires you to play it. In live play, reneging typically costs the offender the trick and a penalty.

Variants

Internet Spades supports four rulesets: Classic (Ace-high, no jokers), Joker-Joker-Ace (JJA), Joker-Joker-Deuce-Ace (JJD), and Joker-Joker-Deuce-Deuce (JJDD). Joker variants add a Big Joker and Little Joker above the Ace of Spades, and some promote the 2♦ or 2♠. See the variants page for the full comparison.

New to the game? The step-by-step how-to-play guide walks through a first hand, and the interactive lessons let you learn by doing.