Spades comes from a family of games known as trick-taking games with similarities to the game of Bridge. However Spades lacks the complexity of scoring one finds in both standard Bridge as well as Contract Bridge. Spades can however serve as an excellent introduction to Bridge while being a great game in itself.
Spades can be played with two or more players though it really comes into its own when played with four players in pairs called partnerships. Partners sit opposite each other at the table. A standard deck of cards (no jokers) is used with Spades always acting as the trump suit, more about trump suits later.
First things first, what is a trick? Well when playing a trick, players selectively play one card from their hand to the table. In Spades any non-spade card will do since spades can be used only when one player runs out of one of the other suits “led”. Regardless the highest card in the suit that is led wins that trick, unless obviously a player plays any Spade. Spades trump any other suit regardless of rank. The best way to explain this is with an example.
John, Jim, Janet and Jane decide to play Spades. The boys will be playing against the girls so each partnership or team sit opposite one another at the table.
Choosing the Dealer
First they need to decide who goes first, so Jim (the owner of the deck of cards) shuffles the deck and then invites his pals to pick one card each. The player showing the highest ranked card will be the first dealer. However in this instance both Jane and John pick a Jack, what to do! Well in Spades this is not a problem in such cases suits are taken into consideration since they are ranked, highest to lowest, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. In this case it’s John with his Jack of hearts which beats Jane’s Jack of Clubs, so John will be the first dealer!
Dealing the Cards
John now takes the deck of cards, shuffles and deals out thirteen cards (13X4=52) to all players one at a time starting with the player to his immediate left. Dealing is clockwise. This is where the game comes into its own. It is now time to bid! This is where the game becomes interesting! Players, having examined their holding, make an educated guess on the number of bids they could potentially win in that hand.
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| John (D) |
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| Janet |
| Jane (goes first) |
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| Jim |
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Table 1- Relative positions of players
The Bid
Jane goes first, she knows that the bid should ideally be spot on, since if a player under-bets (bets less than what she/he effectively wins) repeatedly her partnership will eventually suffer a penalty as shall be seen later. On the other hand over-betting means Jane will get a negative score for her partnership and THAT is definitely not desirable. Since cards rank (highest to lowest) A,K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 if Jane holds a number of high cards, say Aces through Jacks in more than 1 suit, then she stands a higher chance of winning a given number of tricks. However Jane must also take into consideration the number of spade suited cards she owns, since those she does not own could harm her attempts at winning the tricks she needs to fulfil her bid.
The Nil Bids
Jane may actually decide that her hand is so bad that she simply doesn’t stand a chance to win a single trick. If successful the partnership will score an additional 100 points. Obviously the downside is that the partnership loses 100 points if this bid is not honoured. However this time round Jane notices she has a couple of Kings and two Aces…one of which the Ace of spades, so she thinks she’ll be on the mark if she opts to bids that she will win 3 tricks.
First trick
With everyone having settled and noted his or her bid for the hand, Jane kicks off by playing the A©. Jim knows this trick is already as good as lost so he opts to play the smallest heart in his hand 3©. Janet is obviously quite happy with Jane winning her first trick, she plays her smallest heart 2© and the game passes on to John who concludes the trick by playing the K©. Jane sweeps the trick she has just won off the table concluding that trick. She will now open the next having won this one.
Breaking Spades
Some tricks later, Jim opens with a 3§. He does not really have anything decent to play and spades have not been broken yet so he cannot use them as of yet. Janet replies with a 5§, the only club suited card she has left. John has run out of clubs, rules state that if you cannot play a card in the lead suit (clubs in this case), then any suit goes. John is tempted to play his Kª but wait a minute, the Aª has not reared its ugly head and Jim has not indicated he has it in his hands. John decides to forfeit this trick and player 7¨ instead. Lo and behold, Jane slams the Aª as the concluding card on the trick, breaking spades. John is understandably relieved because his Kª would not have stood a chance this time round. On the other hand Jim is quite happy about how things turned out because now he has several spades in his deck begging to be played.
The strength of the spades suit as the trump suit in this game is expressed mostly when a lowly 2ªtrumps say a K¨ J¨ 9© once spades have been broken. This is why at times it pays to play certain card combination because once you effectively deplete cards from one suit from your hand; you increase the flexibility with which you can play what trumps you might have left in your hand. Keeping a mental track of cards played is also an important skill to master in this game.
IMPORTANT – A player must always play a card in the led suit if he can. If a player fails to do so and is caught then the partnership loses the game outright or suffers a 3 trick penalty if the bad play was a genuine mistake. Repeat offenders lose the game.
Other possible bidding types
We have already seen that a player can call a Nil Bid if he feels that he does not stand a chance to win a single trick. If both players claim the same both calling a Nil bid, then the partnership is said to have declared a Double Nil bid (see scoring table later on). The craziest types of bidding in my opinion are the blind bids. A player may Blind Bid if he declares say that he will win 3 tricks without having even looked at the cards. If he achieves this stunt he scores more points for the partnership. There are also such things as Blind Nil bids and Double Blind Nil bids but I think these are definitely bids for the gamblers and not for players who genuinely embrace the strategic aspect of the game. However there is still a situation where such bids might be played out of desperation. For instance if a partnership stand dangerously behind in terms of points it may decide to opt for such outrageous bidding to accrue the points it would otherwise not be able to win.
| Bid Made | If Bid is met | If player takes fewer | If player takes more |
| Nil | 100 | Does not apply | -100 |
| Blind | 100 | -100 | 0 |
| Blind Nil | 200 | Does not apply | -200 |
| Double Nil | Wins the Game | Does not apply | -200 |
| Double Blind Nil | Wins the Game | Does not apply | -400 |
Table 2 - Blind and Nil bids, scores and penalties
Bags
Not taking Cartier or Gucci here, bags are what a player scores when he under-bets or underestimates the number of trick he or she bid for. Say for instance that Jim bid that he would win 4 tricks. During the course of the hand however he effectively wins 5 tricks. What this entails is that when it comes to scoring, Jim will earn 51 points 5X10 points for honouring his contract plus 1 extra point for the extra trick. However Jim also earns what is called 1 bag for the partnership. When the partnership collectively scores 10 bags, it will lose 100 points! Partnerships should therefore keep close tabs on the number of bags they win while not being afraid to make overtricks if that trick prevents the opposing faction from attaining their contracted bids for example.
Keeping Score
The score Sheet should be clear and easy to understand. It should have columns for the tricks bid and tricks one as well as a place where to jot down any bags made. The following example is not a definite way to do this but it offers all the desirable features listed above.
| PLYR 1 | PLYR 2 | PSHIP | BAGS | SCR | PLYR3 | PLYR4 | PSHIP | BAGS | SCR | ||||||
| B | W | B | W | B | W | X | X | B | W | B | W | B | W | X | X |
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However as you will have noted the score column applies for the “partnership” as would be the total “bags” obtained by the same partnership.
Example score sheet
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| PARTNERSHIP A | PARTNERSHIP B | ||||||||||||||
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| PLYR 1 | PLYR 2 | PSHIP | BAGS | SCR | PLYR3 | PLYR4 | PSHIP | BAGS | SCR | ||||||
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| B | W | B | W | B | W | X | X | B | W | B | W | B | W | X | X |
| H1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 1 | +61 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 0 | +10 |
| H2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 0 | +50 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 1 | +61 |
| H3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 0 | +60 | Nil | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 2 | -60 |
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The above example score sheet offers some of the possible outcomes for a hand of spades.
Hand H1 - In the first hand (H1), we find that Player 1 bid 3 tricks winning 3, while player 2 bid 3 while winning 4 tricks. Together, the partnership bid for 6 tricks while effectively winning 7. This means that the partnership “A” honoured its contracted 6 bids plus made 1 bag. Their score would be 10 points for each of the 6 tricks, plus 1 for the bag for a total of 61. Partnership “B” saw a situation where player 3 bid and won 4 tricks while player 4 bid 3 but won only 1 trick. So how did this partnership fair? Player 3 scored 40 points for his contract while player 4 scores -30 for his. So, overall the partnership only won 10 points.
Hand H2 – In the second hand player 1 bid 3 and won 3, while player 2 bids 2 and won 2. Partnership “A” won a straight 50 from this hand. Partnership “B” saw player 3 bid and win 3 tricks while player 4 bid 3 but won 4 tricks. In this instance the partnership bid for 6 tricks over all but won 7. This scores a total of 61 points, 60 for the 6 tricks won and 1 for the bag.
Hand H3 – This is an interesting hand in that in the case of partnership “A”, player 1 bid 4 but won 3 tricks, while player 2 bid 2 but won 3 tricks. Together, this partnership bid and won 6 tricks honouring the overall contract hence even though player 1 did not honour his contract, the partnership still wins 60 points. Partnership “B” saw player 3 place a Nil bid which if successful would have earned the partnership 100 points. However in this instance player 3 won 2 bids meaning his side scores -100 for the failed bid. However player 4 bid and won 4 tricks for a total of 40 points. So for this hand the partnership will earn a negative 60 (-100+40=-60).
As I have noted time and time again I am not normally a fan of trick-taking games but this particular variation offers several elements of strategy while keeping matters fairly simple. I would also advise anyone who might be interested in playing this game to get his hand on a good introduction to the game possibly one with a number of examples that actually highlight the strengths and weakness of playing certain cards in certain situations. Just to get you started have a look at this book called The complete Win at spades available from Amazon UK.
Until next time!
