If there is only one valid card, it will automatically be played. Note: Cards that may not be played in the trick will be shown in darker color making it easy to see valid cards to play. Playing the first spade is known as 'breaking' spades. Spades may not be led until either some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit, of course), or the leader has nothing but spades left in hand. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led or by the highest Spade (if one is played). Players must follow suit by playing a card of the same suit as the card led if they can a player with no card of the suit led may play any card. The other players, in clockwise order, each play a card to the trick. The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick. If you don't want to go for the Nil bonus or penalty you must bid at least 1. It is not possible to bid no tricks without bidding a Nil. The partnership also has the objective of winning the number of tricks bid by the Nil's partner. There is an extra bonus for this if it succeeds and a penalty if it fails. This is a declaration that that the player who bid Nil will not win any tricks during the play. Unlike other games with bidding, there is no requirement for each bid to be higher than the last one, and players are not allowed to pass.Ī bid of 0 tricks is known as Nil. The bids of the two partners are then added together and the total is the number of tricks that team must try to win in order to get a postive score.Įveryone must bid a number, and in theory any number from 0 to 13 is allowed. The bidding begins with the player to dealer's left and continues clockwise around the table.Įach player bids a number of tricks. The dealer deals out all the cards one at a time so that each player has 13. Points are scored by winning at least as many tricks as you bid. First partnership to 500 points wins the game. The object of the game is to score as many points as possible. The cards in each suit rank from highest to lowest: A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2. There are four players in two fixed partnerships. Spades is a trick taking game for 4 players in fixed partnerships where you try win the number of tricks

Going nil in spades