Spades
A trick-taking game for four in partnerships, or three to six alone.
At a glance
A standard 52 cards, 13 tricks a hand. Spades are always trump — there is no card to turn.
Bid the number of tricks you will take and then take at least that many. In partnerships the two bids combine into one contract, so you are playing your partner's hand as much as your own.
Make the contract: 10 points per trick bid. Miss it: lose 10 per trick bid, however close you came.
Every trick over the contract is a 'bag' — worth one point now and trouble later. Collect ten and you lose 100. This is why a good table bids close and does not grab spare tricks.
Bidding zero promises you will take no tricks at all: 100 points if you keep it, −100 if you break it. Your partner still plays their own bid.
First to the target — 500 by default. In partnerships the target belongs to the pair, not to either player.
How Spades scoring works
Every player, or every partnership, bids the number of tricks they expect to win. Make the bid and you score 10 points per trick bid. Fall short and you lose 10 per trick bid — the whole bid, not the difference.
Spades are always trump, which is where the name comes from and why the bidding is more predictable than in Wizard: you can count your spades.
Games are usually played to 500 points.
Bags, and why they ruin an evening
Tricks you win beyond your bid are called bags (or overtricks). Each one is worth a single point at the time — and every ten bags accumulated costs you 100.
This is the rule that surprises people. A partnership can win almost every hand, sail past 400, and hand back a hundred points because they have been quietly collecting overtricks all night. It is why experienced players deliberately lose tricks they could win.
Casetta Cards tracks the bag count for you and applies the penalty when it comes due, which is the part tables most often forget.
Nil and blind nil
A bid of nil is a promise to win no tricks at all. Make it and score 100; take a single trick and lose 100. Your partner's bid is scored separately either way, so a nil is a gamble taken on behalf of a team.
Blind nil is the same promise made before looking at your hand, for 200. It is usually a sign that a partnership is a long way behind and has decided to do something about it.
Common disputes, settled
Can I lead spades whenever I like? Not until spades are broken — until somebody has played one because they could not follow suit.
What happens if we make exactly our bid? Ten per trick and no bags. That is the good outcome.
Do bags carry between hands? Yes. They accumulate for the whole game, which is precisely what makes them dangerous.
What if my partner bids nil and I take tricks? Nothing — your tricks are yours. The nil fails only if the nil bidder takes one.
Four players only? Partnerships need four. Casetta Cards also scores a solo game for three to six, where everyone bids for themselves.
Keeping score without the arithmetic
Spades has the most bookkeeping of any common card game: bids per side, made or set, bags accumulating invisibly, a penalty that lands every ten of them, and nil bids scored apart from everything else. Casetta Cards does the lot — partnerships or solo, bags tracked and penalties applied automatically. Free, nothing to install.
Variations
All off unless you turn them on when starting a game.
Every player for themselves — Each person plays their own bid. Works at a table that won't divide evenly into pairs.
300 points — Six or so hands — an hour at a steady table.
500 points — The traditional target. Long enough that bags actually start to matter.