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How to play Spades: Step-by-step guide to learn card game (with pictures!)

Clare Mulroy Veronica Bravo
USA TODAY

Card games are a great way to pass the time. Whether you're headed to a friend's house, a bar or spending time with family, it’s handy to have a deck and a few games in your arsenal in case you get bored. 

Spades is one crowd-pleaser to try – it involves strategy and a bit of luck. It’s a variation of “Whist” a trick-taking card game format that dates to at least 1529, and by the 19th century was known as “the premier intellectual card game of the Western world,” according to Britannica.

How to play spades

In Spades, players bet how many hands they think they can win. They score points based on how many they do. It’s a trick-taking card game, which means each round players play a single card and try to outrank each other. There are 13 "tricks" played in spades. A trick is a round in spades – it includes one card played by each player.

The game continues through several rounds until one player reaches 500 points, according to Bicycle. If you’re short on time, you can also play to 200 points.

Spades is usually played with four players divided into two teams, though you can play as individuals as well. If you have more than four players, you won't be able to deal 13 cards to each player. Instead, play a modified version and deal 10 cards to each player.

Deal

The dealer shuffles and deals 13 cards to each player. Those 13 cards make up one round. Do not show your cards to the other players, even your teammate.

Place your bets

Starting to the left of the dealer, each team bets how many of the 13 rounds they will win. To win a hand, you have to play the highest card. 

Without revealing your hand to your teammate, announce how many you think you will collectively win. Your teammate will do the same. This is called a “contract bid."

Decide on any “house rules” for betting. Here are a few popular ones:

  • Some variations force every player to bet at least one hand.
  • "Nil" betting: Players are allowed to bet nothing because they believe they won't make any tricks. If they succeed, they win 100 points. But if they make any bets, they lose 100 points.
  • "Blind Nil": Players can bet nothing before even before seeing their cards. A successful Blind Nil is worth 200 points, but you subtract 200 from your score if you lose. 

A “good” hand is made up of as many spades as possible, plus high cards of other suits. Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks are all good high cards.

You win points for every bid you make and even those that exceed your betting, but don’t overdo it. You automatically score 0 points for that round if you win fewer hands than you bet.

Start the round

The player to the dealer's left begins by playing a card of their choice in the center of the table. This card decides the "starting suit."

You can't start the first round with a spade. In fact, no round can have a spade as the starting suit until a spade is played during a round, which is called "breaking spades."

The highest card of the starting suit wins the hand. The winner of the round keeps those cards close to them at the side of the table.

Continue play

Whoever wins the trick starts the next round with a card of their choice. The remaining players continue clockwise to follow suit and try to win the trick.

If a player doesn't have any cards of the starting suit, they can play another suit, including a spade. A spade will trump even the highest-ranking card of the starting suit. But there are only two scenarios in which you can play a spade:

  • You don't have any cards of the starting suit
  • The starting suit is a spade

After all 13 tricks are made, players will be out of cards. Add up each player's points based on their total hands won and keep track on a piece of paper or someone's phone.

Shuffle, deal and play another round until someone reaches 500 points. To keep it even, have the player to the left of the first dealer become the new dealer, and the person to their left bet and go first.

How to keep score in spades

Teams score together. Players score 10 points for every trick they bet, plus one more point for each additional trick they win. These extra points are called "bags." But if your team reaches 10 bags in one round, you lose 100 points.

For example, if a team bets 7 and gets 10, they'll get 73 points total – 70 points for their original bid and 3 bags for the extra tricks.

For example, if player one bets 4 and their teammate, player two, bets 1, they have to get at least 5 hands total. It doesn’t matter if player one wins 3 and player two wins the other 2, as long as they end up with at least 5. If they succeed, they win 50 points (or more) as a team.

Your team received 0 points if you overbid, meaning you make less than the number of tricks you bet.

Record each player’s points until someone reaches 500.

Keep the fun going with more illustrated game guides

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