Spades Card Game
Spades is a bidding and trick-taking card game of skill In online environment, Partnership Spades is not well suited for serious players as it is highly prone to player collusion. Even a single individual can get two separate online identities and pose as two partners, winning against an opposing real partnership every time. Spades Plus Free Download & Play For PC! Trick taking is one of the most iconic genres in the history of card games like Spades Plus. Trick taking belongs to the largest top-level category of card games that follows the classification-by-mechanism rule called Outplay games of which it also boasts the most number of variants. Spades is a trick-based card game for 4 players. Players sitting across from each other are partners on the same team. The object of this game is to be the first team to reach 300 or 500 points. Each player is dealt a hand of 13 cards from a 52 card deck. The hand is sorted by suit, then rank: Clubs, Diamonds, Spades, Hearts.
Spades Rules
These are the rules I use for Spades. I got them from John McLeod's pagat.com, which has rules for pretty much all card games. (C) John McLeod, 2011 - reprinted with permission.
The teams
The four players are in fixed partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other. Deal and play are clockwise.
Rank of Cards
A standard pack of 52 cards is used. The cards, in each suit, rank from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
The Deal
The first dealer is chosen at random, and the turn to deal rotates clockwise. The cards are shuffled and then dealt singly, in clockwise order beginning with the player on dealer's left, until all 52 cards have been dealt and everyone has 13.
The Bidding
In Spades, all four players bid a number of tricks. Each team adds together the bids of the two partners, and the total is the number of tricks that team must try to win in order to get a positive score. The bidding begins with the player to dealer's left and continues clockwise around the table. Everyone must bid a number, and in theory any number from 0 to 13 is allowed. Unlike other games with bidding, there is no requirement for each bid to be higher than the last one, and players are not allowed to pass. There is no second round of bidding - bids once made cannot be altered.
Example: South deals; West bids 3; North bids 1; East bids 4; South bids 4. The objective of North and South is to win at least 5 tricks (4+1), East and West try to win at least 7 (4+3).
A bid of 0 tricks is known as Nil. This is a declaration that that the player who bid Nil will not win any tricks during the play. There is an extra bonus for this if it succeeds and a penalty if it fails. The partnership also has the objective of winning the number of tricks bid by the Nil's partner. It is not possible to bid no tricks without bidding a Nil. If you don't want to go for the Nil bonus or penalty you must bid at least 1.
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Spades Game Free Spades
The Play of the Hand
The player to dealer's left leads any card except a spade to the first trick. Each player, in turn, clockwise, must follow suit if able; if unable to follow suit, the player may play any card.
A trick containing a spade is won by the highest spade played; if no spade is played, the trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. The winner of each trick leads to the next. Spades may not be led until either some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit, of course), or the leader has nothing but spades left in hand.
Playing the first spade is known as 'breaking' spades.
A Boston is when one team gets all 13 tricks in a round.
Scoring
A side that takes at least as many tricks as its bid calls for receives a score equal to 10 times its bid. Additional tricks (overtricks) are worth an extra one point each.
Sandbagging rule: Overtricks are colloquially known as bags. A side which (over several deals) accumulates ten or more bags has 100 points deducted from its score. Any bags beyond ten are carried over to the next cycle of ten overtricks - that is if they reached twenty overtricks they would lose another 100 points and so on.
Example: Suppose a team whose score is 337 bids 5 tricks and they have 7 bags carried over from the previous rounds. If they win 7 tricks they score 52, taking their score to 389 (and their bags to 9). If they win 8 tricks they score 53, but lose 100 because they now have 10 bags, and their score becomes 290 (337 + 53 - 100). If they win 9 tricks they score 54 and lose 100, bringing their score to 291.
Free Spades Card Game
If a side does not make its bid, they lose 10 points for each trick they bid.
If a bid of nil is successful, the nil bidder's side receives 100 points. This is in addition to the score won (or lost) by the partner of the nil bidder for tricks made. If a bid of nil fails - that is, the bidder takes at least one trick - the bidder's side loses 100 points, but still receives any amount scored for the partner's bid.
When a nil fails, the tricks won by the nil bidder do not count towards making the partner's bid, but do count as bags for the team.
The side which reaches 500 points first wins the game. If both sides reach 500 points in a single deal, the side with the higher score wins.
Spades is a trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s and became popular in the 1940s. It is a partnership card game that, like Bridge, is descended from the old English game of Whist. In general, the goal of each Hand of Spades is to predict or Bid on how many Tricks you will take during that hand.
Basic Rules
Spades is a trick-based card game for 4 players. Players sitting across from each other are partners on the same team. The object of this game is to be the first team to reach 300 or 500 points.
The layout
Each player is dealt a hand of 13 cards from a 52 card deck. The hand is sorted by suit, then rank: Clubs, Diamonds, Spades, Hearts. Cards that are out of play are darkened.
Bidding
Starting with the dealer, each player in turn bids the number of tricks she expects to win. Possible bids are from Nil to thirteen. The sum of partnership bids are called the contract. If a player bids Nil, (meaning they expect to win no tricks), then they may, depending on the rule settings, be allowed to exchange up to four cards with their partner once everyone else has bid.
How to play Spades
The game begins with all cards being dealt. Each player plays one card and together they are called a trick. To start you must estimate how many tricks you think you can take with your hand. Your bid and your partners are then added together and this is the number of tricks your team must take. Play begins with the player to the dealer's left leading a card. The highest card in that suit wins the trick. Now for the tricky part and the reason the game is calls Spades. If you are out of the lead suit, you can play any card you like. If you play a Spade and no one else does, you win the trick. So Spades are trump cards. In this case the highest Spade wins.
The game does not allow ties for first place. In the case of a tie for first, the game will continue until there is a clear winner. This is true of both games ending at a point value and timed games.
Scoring
Tricks count ten points each for a partnership if the contract is made, and ten against if it is set. Bags, or tricks won in excess of the contract, count as one point each. This isn't a bad thing per se, but if you gather 10 bags you will deducted 100 points. Not all Spades games use bags, but ours does. You can opt to bid nothing which (Nil bid), if successful, will reap your team extra 100 points. -100 if you fail. For Blind Nil, these values are doubles (200 points).
About this Spades game
When playing Spades it is important to always remember your partner. By paying close attention to what cards fall early in the game you can play to your partner’s strength and they can play to yours. At its best, both you and your partner’s hands will be stronger than they ever could be individually and this strength is both satisfying to grasp and the secret to success in the game of Spades.
You can play classic Spades online on our website. And it's free! No download, no login required, simple gameplay! Also this free online game is available in mobile browser across all your Android, iOS and Windows devices. Good luck and have a good time!