The games · Coolhand Cards

Spades

The American partnership game where spades are always trump. Everyone bids the tricks they'll take, and a nil bid is worth a hundred, won or lost.

Players: 4
Family: Trick-Taking
App: Coolhand Cards · iOS and Android, soon

How it goes

You and your partner, across the table, are a side. Spades are always trump, the suit that beats every other, hence the name. Everyone bids in turn the number of tricks they'll take, and a bid of none is a nil, scored on its own. The player left of the deal leads anything but a spade, and spades can't be led until one has fallen on a trick. Follow suit if you can. Make your side's combined bid and you score ten for every trick bid plus one for each trick over. Fall short and you lose ten for every trick bid. A nil made is a hundred, a nil failed a hundred lost. And every ten overtricks you gather cost a hundred. The first side to five hundred wins.

A good hand

A bid you can count on: aces, kings with another card of the same suit behind them, and spades beyond the third. A hand with nothing above a nine and few spades is a nil, worth more than any small bid, if your partner can cover you. Overtricks aren't free. Ten of them cost a hundred, so a side that has reached its bid should throw its winners away.

The usual mistake

Bidding your hopes instead of your cards, then chasing the bid with high spades that would have taken a trick later anyway. Breaking your partner's nil by leading a suit they must follow high. And ignoring overtricks until the tenth one arrives and costs you a hundred.

Played differently where you are?

Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Spades goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.

The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.