SPADES CARD GAME GUIDE
One partner. Two rivals. A team match to 500.
Each full hand deals all 52 cards among four players, thirteen each. You and your partner sit opposite each other and share a score. Aces are high, spades are always trump and there is no passing. Complete all thirteen tricks before scoring the hand.
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Bid for the tricks you expect to take.
The player left of the dealer bids first and leads the first trick. Bidding continues in turn, from 0 through 13. A bid of 0 is Nil: a promise to take no tricks. The dealer rotates each hand. Your team’s non-Nil bids form its ordinary contract.
Follow suit and watch the trump cards.
You must follow the led suit whenever you hold it. Otherwise you may play any card, including a spade on the first trick. The highest spade wins a trick; without a spade, the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner leads next. Spades cannot be led before a player uses one while unable to follow another suit, unless the leading player holds only spades. That forced spade lead alone does not break spades in this version.
Meet the team contract.
Tricks taken by non-Nil players count toward the ordinary contract. Make it to score ten times the combined bid, plus one point for each ordinary overtrick. Fall short and lose ten times the bid. Ordinary overtricks also become bags.
Nil and bags have separate consequences.
A Nil player scores +100 for taking no tricks, or −100 for taking any. Failed-Nil tricks never help the ordinary contract; each adds one bag and one point even when the contract fails. Bags carry between hands: every ten costs 100 points, with the remainder carried forward. For example, a Nil player taking two tricks while their partner bids four and takes three gives the team −138 before any carried-bag penalty: −40 contract, −100 Nil and +2 bags.
Finish a full hand before deciding the match.
After a complete hand, if either team has reached 500, the higher total wins. A tie continues into another full hand. There is no early defeat at a negative score. Next hand continues the current match; it does not start another Journey level.
Choose a bid or legal card by touch or keyboard.
Select your bid and confirm it, then tap a highlighted legal card on your turn. Tab reaches controls and cards; Enter or Space activates them. The three computer players respond after your choice. Their public plays appear in the current and last trick. There is no timer or automatic next hand.
Use Practice Undo to reconsider.
Practice Undo restores one human decision and the computer responses that followed it. Replaying can benefit from information you have already seen, so these local results are not competitive rankings. Rules hints explain available actions without revealing hidden cards or a winning path.
Ready for another game? See how the journey levels works.
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