Spades
Spades is a partnership game about promises. Before a card is played, you and your partner each say how many tricks you will take, and the two numbers are added into one contract you both have to make. Take fewer and you lose ten points a trick. Take more and the extras pile up as bags until ten of them cost you a hundred. Spades are always trump, the bidding is the game, and the hardest part is telling your partner what you have using nothing but a number.
The table is still being built. The rules below are the real ones — the order we build in is set by the vote.
Bid
Look at thirteen cards and say how many tricks you will win. Your bid and your partner's add together into one contract.
Play
Follow suit if you can. Spades beat everything else, and the highest spade played takes the trick.
Settle
Make the contract and score ten a trick. Miss it and lose ten a trick. Overtricks are bags, and bags come back for you.
Can I play Spades on NowPlay yet?
Not yet. Spades is on the workshop bench — the rules and the strategy guide are here now, and the table is still being built. The order we build in is set by the community vote on the shelf, so a vote for Spades moves it up.
What is a bag in Spades?
A trick you took beyond what your partnership bid. Each one is worth a point at the time, but they also accumulate across the whole game, and the tenth costs you 100 points. It is why taking every trick you can is a losing habit.
What happens if you do not make your bid in Spades?
Your partnership loses 10 points per trick bid, and the tricks you did take count for nothing. Bid seven and take six and you are 70 points down — the same as if you had taken none.
What is nil in Spades?
A bid of zero: a promise to take no tricks at all. Made, it is worth 100 to your partnership; one trick and it costs 100. Your partner bids and is scored normally alongside it, and a good partner spends the hand keeping you off the lead.
Can you lead spades in Spades?
Not until spades are broken, which happens when somebody plays one on a trick whose suit they could not follow. The exception is a player holding nothing but spades, who may lead one because they have no other legal move.
Do you have to follow suit in Spades?
Yes, whenever you hold a card in the suit led. Only when you are out of that suit may you play something else — and that is the only time you may play a spade on another suit's trick.