Spades

The information for the following rules was obtained on the Spades page at John McLeod's web site ( http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/card-games/plainbid/spades.html). The basic information for that page (and, thus, the rules below) was provided by Theodore Hwa, Szu Kay Wong, and Dennis J Barmore. Rodney Carter and Scott Rhodes also provided important information for these rules.

Number of Players: 4 playing as two partnerships

Object: To score 500 points

Deck: Regular deck of 52 cards

Rank of Cards: Standard ranking, Ace high

Preliminaries: The 4 players are seated such that partners are non-adjacent.

The Deal: For each hand, the deck is dealt out completely with each player receiving 13 cards.

Bidding: After examining their hands, the non-dealing team decides on a bid for the hand. This bid is the number of tricks the partnership believes they can take during the hand. The partners may give each other information on how many tricks they believe they can take or they might be able to take but they may not discuss the specific makeup of their hands. (e.g. Allowed: "I know I can take 4 tricks, I might be able to take 6". Not Allowed: "I have a couple of high hearts and a singleton in clubs".) After the non-dealing team has decided on a bid, the dealing team does the same thing. During a team's bid either or both players may make a "nil" bid in addition to the teams bid. This is a bid that that player will take no tricks during the hand. If a team is behind by more than 100 points, a player may make a "blind nil" bid. This means bidding nil before looking at the cards in your hand. A player who bids blind nil may, after looking at their cards, pass two of their cards to their partner (face-down). The partner then takes these cards, places them in their hand and passes two cards back to the blind bidder, face down.

The Play of the Hand: For the first trick, each player plays their lowest club. If a player has no clubs, they must play hearts or diamonds. Spades may not be played on the first trick unless a player holds nothing but spades (in which case that player would take every trick anyway, so the hand need not be played out). The person who played the highest club takes in the first trick. This person then leads to the next trick any card except a spade (unless they hold nothing else). Each player in turn then must play a card of the same suit as the card led. If a player does not have a card of that suit, they may play any card. The person who plays the highest spade takes the trick. If no spades are played, the person who played the highest card of the suit led takes the trick. The winner of each trick then leads to the next trick. Spades may not be led until a spade has been played or a person holds nothing but spades.

Scoring: If a team takes as many tricks as they bid, they receive 10 points for each trick that they bid to take plus 1 point for each extra trick they take. If a team does not take at least the number of tricks that they bid for, their score is reduced 10 points for each trick they fell short of their bid. If a player bids nil and does not take any tricks, the team scores an extra 50 points. If a player bids nil and does take tricks, the teams score is reduced by 50 points (the tricks the nil bidder took may be used towards the teams bid, though). Blind nil bids are treated like nil bids except they count as 100 points positive or negative. If, during a game, a team has accumulated a total of 10 or more extra tricks above what they bid (this can be tracked easily by looking at the rightmost digit in the score, if it goes back to 0 or past 0 then you know a total of 10 overtricks have been taken) there score is reduced by 100 points. This reduction is taken for every 10 overtricks. A team wins when they score 500 points. If both teams have over 500 points at the end of a hand, the team with the highest score is the winner.

Here are some of the variations I have received or found.

Variations in the Deck:

2 non-identical jokers are substituted for the red 2's.

2 non-identical jokers are added to the deck. (In this case, the dealer receives 15 cards and discards 2 of them before bidding starts.)

Variations in the Rank of Cards:

Rank of trumps is "Big" Joker, "Little" Joker, Ace, then normal.

Rank of trumps is "Big" Joker, "Little" Joker, 2 of Spades, Ace of Spades, then normal.

Rank of trumps is 2 of Spades, Ace of Spades, then normal (no jokers).

One or more 2's of the other suits may be used as high trumps. A ranking of these two's needs to be decided on before play begins.

In any of the above cases, the special cards are considered spades for purposes of following suit.

Variations in Bidding:

Bidding proceeds in a clockwise direction starting left of the dealer. Each person may mention how many tricks they think they might take but must also give a precise bid. (Round-the-table bidding). The final bid for the side is simply the sum of the two partners bids. It does not matter who actually takes the tricks.

Bidding proceeds round-the-table as above, but players may only name a number of tricks they bid. Nothing else may be said.

A bid of zero and a bid of nil may or may not be considered different.

After first player has bid, the final total bid for the team must be equal to the first player's bid or at least 2 more than the first players bid (used only in round-the-table bidding).

The final total of all bids may not be equal to the number of tricks in the game (13 in 4-hand game). The last bidder is required to bid an amount that keeps this from happening.

A second round of bidding may be allowed in which teams may increase their bid if desired.

Blind nil bidding may not be allowed.

Blind 6 (or Blind 7) bidding may be allowed. This is a bid to take exactly 6 or 7 (or at least 6 or 7) tricks made before the partnership has looked at their cards and before any bidding has begun. It is then worth double the normal contract (either positive or negative). 6 or 7 is the minimum blind bid allowed. Higher blind bids are allowed.

A 10-for-200 bid is allowed. This is a bid to take exactly 10 tricks (or at least 10 tricks) for 200 points (+ or -).

Any bid of 10 can be considered a 10-for-200 bid.

Moon bidding may be allowed. This is a bid to take all 13 tricks. It is worth 200 points (+ or -).

Blind Moon bidding may be allowed. This is bid to take all 13 tricks made before the partnership has looked at their cards and before any bidding has taken place. This bid is worth 400 points (+ or -).

Blind bidding is only allowed when a team is 100 or more points behind.

There is no pass of cards on a blind nil bid.

Minimum bid for a team is 4 tricks unless one player bids nil.

Variations regarding Misdeals:

A player may call a misdeal if they have no spades.

A player may call a misdeal if they have 0 or 1 spades.

A player may call a misdeal if they have 7 or more cards in one suit.

A player may call a misdeal if they have no face cards.

A player may ask partner "Should I call a misdeal?" (if hand qualifies for a misdeal). The partner replies "yes" or "no". The reply is not binding.

Note: In all of the above cases, the misdeal should be called before bidding has begun. There is then a new deal by the same dealer.

Variations in the play of the hand:

A spade may be played on the first trick if player has no clubs.

Player left of dealer makes opening lead. May lead any card except a spade.

Dealer leads to first trick. May lead any card except a spade.

Any card may be led at any time.

Variations in scoring:

Game may be played to 300 (or 400) points.

Nil bid counts 100, Blind Nil counts 200.

A blind nil made is +100 but not made is -50.

If team fails to take number of tricks bid, their score is reduced by 10 times the number of tricks bid regardless of how many tricks they took. (e.g. A team bids 8, but takes only 7. Their score is reduced by 80 points.)

Tricks taken over the amount of the bid count as -1 instead of +1. (100 point penalty for accumulating 10 extra tricks does not apply.)

Tricks taken over the amount of the bid count as -10 instead of +1. (100 point penalty for accumulating 10 extra tricks does not apply.)

Taking all 13 tricks wins the game.

A successful moon bid (or blind moon) bid wins the game.

An unsuccessful blind bid is only penalized the same as a normal bid.

If the last trick of the hand is taken with high spade (9 or above) and results in making a bid exactly there is a 10 point bonus.

If there is an unbroken sequence of tricks taken at the end of a hand with high spades (9 or above) that results in making a bid exactly there is a bonus of 10 points for each trick in the sequence.

There is no penalty for accumulating extra tricks.

Variations in the number of players:

3 people may play Spades by either discarding a small card from the deck (such as the 2 of Clubs) and dealing each person 17 cards, or by adding the 2 Jokers to the regular deck and dealing each person 18 cards. Each player bids and plays for themself. Otherwise any of the above variations may be used.

There are a couple of ways 2 people can play. I give instructions for each below.

1st way: Three hands are dealt with the additional hand always being dealt left of the dealer (or always right of the dealer). Bidding and play is as in the 3-hand game with a card from the face down extra hand (the "dummy hand") being played at the appropriate time during the trick. If the dummy wins the trick, set the trick aside and lead the next card from the dummy. Obviously, there is no way to make the dummy play the proper suit on the tricks.

2nd way: The deck is not dealt out. It is placed face down between the two players. One player then draws the top card of the deck and looks at it. If they wish to have this card in their hand they keep it, look at the next card in the deck and discard this second card. If they do not wish to keep the first card in their hand, they discard it and draw the second card which they must keep in their hand. The second player then follows the same procedure. The players take turns following this procedure until their are no cards left in the deck. Each player will now have 13 cards in their hand. Bidding and play take place as above.

Solo Spades:

Solo Spades is played like above with the following exceptions:

Each player bids and plays for themself. There are no partnerships.

Each player must play a card that beats the highest card so far played to a trick if able. This includes playing a trump if you have no cards of the suit led. (Players must still play a card of the suit led if able.)