Strategy
Spades rules and bidding strategy for beginners
Spades is easy to learn and hard to bid well. Here are the rules you need, a simple way to count tricks in your hand, a worked bidding example, and a scoring example that shows exactly how bags can cost you a game.
9 min readUpdated By PlayNest team
Spades in one minute
Spades is a trick-taking card game for four players in two partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other. Every player gets 13 cards, spades are always trump, and before the first card is played each player bids how many tricks they expect to win. Your bid and your partner's bid are added together into a team contract. Make it and you score; miss it and you lose points. The first team to 500 points wins.
That is the whole idea. Everything else in this article is about doing it well. If you would like to try each step as you read, you can play Spades online free against three computer players or with friends, and switch the computer to Easy while you learn.
The rules you need before you bid
Bidding only makes sense once you know how tricks are won. These are the rules that matter:
- Follow suit. If you hold a card of the suit that was led, you must play one. If you don't, you may play anything.
- Spades are trump. Any spade beats any card of another suit. The highest spade in a trick wins it; with no spade, the highest card of the led suit wins.
- Spades must be broken. You cannot lead a spade until someone has played one on a trick because they could not follow suit, unless your hand holds only spades.
- All 13 tricks are played. Unlike Rung or Court Piece, the hand does not stop early, so every extra trick you take is counted.
- Contracts are shared. Partners pool their tricks, except that a player who bids Nil plays on their own.
How to count tricks in your hand
Good bidding is mostly honest counting. Sort your hand by suit and go through it in three passes.
Pass one: sure tricks. Count each Ace as one trick. Count the King of spades as a trick if you hold at least one other spade, and the King of a side suit as a trick when it has a small card beside it, because it will usually win once the Ace has gone.
Pass two: spade length. Spades that are not high cards can still win. In a hand with five or more spades, the fifth spade and beyond usually take a trick each late in the hand, when other players have run out. A Queen of spades with three or more spades beside it is often worth a trick too.
Pass three: short suits. A void (no cards in a suit) or a singleton (one card) lets you trump that suit when it is led. Count a trick for it only if you have spades to spare after your length tricks. Do not count the same spade twice.
Then add the passes up and round down when in doubt. Bidding one trick too few usually costs a single point and a bag. Bidding one too many can cost the whole contract.
Tip
Side suit Queens and Jacks are rarely tricks in Spades. Count them as a bonus, not as part of your bid.
Worked example: bidding a real hand
Say you are dealt this hand. You are the third player to bid, and your partner has already bid 3.
- Spades: A, Q, 9, 6, 3
- Hearts: K, 7, 4
- Diamonds: 8
- Clubs: A, J, 5, 2
Counting the example hand
Sure tricks. The Ace of spades and the Ace of clubs are one trick each: 2.
Probable tricks. The King of hearts has two small hearts with it, so it should win a trick once the Ace of hearts has been played: count 1. The Queen of spades sits with the Ace and three more spades, so it is likely to win a round of spades: count 1. Running total: 4.
Short suits. You have a single diamond. After the first round of diamonds you can trump with a small spade, and with five spades you can afford to: count 1. Running total: 5.
Now be honest about the risks. The King of hearts could be caught if the player on your right holds the Ace. Your fifth spade is already working as the diamond trump, so it is not an extra trick. A sensible count is 4 to 5, and with your partner already showing 3, a bid of 4 gives a team contract of 7 that you expect to make with a little room to spare.
Now suppose the opponents bid 3 and 2. The table totals 12, leaving just one spare trick, so 4 is right and you can play to make it. If instead the opponents had bid 1 and 1, the total would be 9, there would be four spare tricks, and bags would be in play all hand. You still bid 4, but you plan to duck once the contract is safe.
When to bid Nil
A Nil bid promises that you will take no tricks at all. It scores 100 for your team if you succeed and costs 100 if you take even one trick. Your partner's bid is scored separately, and your tricks never count toward it.
A good Nil hand looks like this one: spades 4, 2; hearts 9, 6, 3; diamonds 10, 7, 5, 2; clubs Q, 8, 4, 3. No Aces or Kings, only two low spades, and plenty of small cards to play under other people's. The Queen of clubs is the risk, but with three small clubs beside it you can usually play low until someone else has taken the high clubs.
Avoid Nil with a high spade, a singleton King or Ace, or a long suit with no low cards. When your partner bids Nil, your job changes: play high cards over the opponents, take the tricks your partner might be forced to win, and lead suits where your partner is short.
Blind Nil is the same promise made before you look at your cards, for 200 points either way. On PlayNest it is allowed only when your team is behind by 100 points or more, and there is no card exchange with your partner, so treat it as a comeback gamble, not a regular bid.
How Spades scoring works
Each team is scored at the end of every hand:
- Contract made: 10 points per trick bid, plus 1 point per extra trick.
- Contract missed (set): minus 10 points per trick bid.
- Nil: plus 100 if made, minus 100 if not. Blind Nil: plus or minus 200.
- Bags: each extra trick is a bag. Bags carry over from hand to hand, and every time a team reaches 10 bags it loses 100 points and 10 bags come off its count.
- Winning: first to 500 by default (or 300). If both teams pass the target in the same hand, the higher score wins. A team at minus 200 or lower loses.
Scoring example: how bags cost a game
Here is how bags quietly decide matches. Your team has 310 points and 7 bags from earlier hands. The opponents have 280 points and 2 bags.
Hand 1. Your team bids 4 + 3 = 7 and takes 9 tricks. That is 70 points plus 2 for the extra tricks: 72. You move to 382, and your bags rise to 9. The opponents bid 2 + 2 = 4 and take exactly 4: 40 points, so they have 320 and still 2 bags.
Hand 2. Your team bids 5 + 2 = 7 and takes 8 tricks: 71 points, which would put you on 453. But that eighth trick is your tenth bag, so you lose 100 and the bag count resets to 0. You finish the hand on 353. The opponents had one player bid Nil and the other bid 4. The Nil bidder took no tricks (+100) and the partner took 5 tricks against a bid of 4 (40 + 1 = 41), so they score 141 and jump to 461 with 3 bags.
In two hands your team made every contract and still fell from a 30 point lead to 108 points behind. Three spare tricks did the damage: without them your team would be on 450 with 7 bags, not 353.
Tip
Check your bag count before each hand. At 7 or more bags, bid your full value and duck every trick you don't need.
Playing the hand: make it, then stop
Bidding sets the target; card play decides whether you hit it. A few habits cover most situations:
- Cash sure winners when the contract is in doubt. An Ace you never played is a trick you never took.
- Count tricks as you go. Once your team has its contract, play under the winning card whenever you can.
- Set the opponents when you can. If they are one trick short of their contract with few tricks left, taking a trick you don't need is worth far more than the bag it costs.
- Lead your partner's void. If your partner is out of a suit the opponents still hold, leading it lets your partner trump.
- Count spades. There are 13 (15 in Joker Spades, where the Big Joker and Little Joker sit above the Ace). Once the top spades are out, the rest are winners.
- Don't overtake your partner. If your partner is already winning the trick, play low unless you need to protect a Nil.
Spades vs Hearts and Rung: what carries over
If you already play Hearts, your card counting carries straight over, but the goal flips. In Hearts you dodge tricks with hearts and the Queen of spades and the lowest score wins; in Spades you want exactly the tricks you bid. Our guide to how to play Hearts and win covers that game's passing and shooting the moon, and many players enjoy alternating between the two.
If you grew up with Rung or Court Piece, the partnership instincts are the same: support your partner, read who is out of which suit, and save trump for when it counts. The big differences are fixed spades as trump, bidding, and all 13 tricks being played. See Rung vs Hokm vs Spades for a side by side comparison.
Play now: practise your bidding
The fastest way to improve is to bid, play and look at the result. Start on Easy, count every hand with the three passes above, and compare your bid with what you actually took. Then move up to Normal, and to Hard when your bids are landing within one trick. The Hard computer counts every card and looks ahead before it plays, so it will punish loose bidding.
Ready? Play Spades now: it is free, runs in your browser with no download or sign-up, and you can invite friends with a link when you want a real partner across the table.
Questions people ask
- What is a good first bid in Spades?
- Count your Aces, the King of spades, guarded Kings and spades beyond the fourth, then round down. Most hands are worth 2 to 4 tricks. If your count is uncertain, bid the lower number: a bag costs 1 point, a set costs 10 per trick bid.
- How do you count bags in Spades?
- Every trick your team takes beyond its contract is one bag, and bags carry over between hands. When the total reaches 10, your team loses 100 points and 10 bags are removed from the count. Any extra bags above 10 stay on the count.
- Should my partner and I both bid Nil?
- Almost never. If both partners bid Nil, every trick either of you takes breaks a Nil, and with 13 tricks to share among four players that is very hard to avoid. One Nil supported by a partner with a solid hand is the usual pattern.
- Do you have to bid at least 1 in Spades?
- No. In this version every player bids from 1 to 13 or bids Nil, which is a promise to take zero tricks. There is no plain bid of zero without the Nil bonus and penalty.
- Is Spades harder than Hearts?
- Spades adds bidding and a partner, so there is more to plan, but the card play is similar. Hearts is a good warm-up for counting cards; Spades rewards accurate bidding and teamwork.
