How to Play Spades for Beginners

Four players sit in two partnerships, with partners opposite each other, so play always alternates opponent, partner, opponent around the table. The game uses a full 52-card deck with no jokers. The dealer shuffles and deals the entire deck one card at a time clockwise, starting with the player on their left, until everyone holds exactly 13 cards. Nothing is left face down and there is no stock to draw from, which is why an attentive player can eventually work out exactly what is still outstanding.

Inside each suit the cards rank ace high down to the two. Spades are permanent trump, which means the two of spades beats the ace of hearts on any trick where hearts were led. That single fact is what makes the game a trump game rather than a straight high-card game. After each hand the deal moves one seat to the left.

Sort your hand into suits and put the spades to one side, because they get counted differently. Then look for near-certain winners. Every ace outside spades is roughly one trick. A king backed by at least one small card in the same suit is roughly one trick, because you can afford to lose the first round of that suit and win the second. A bare king often loses to the ace and is worth much less. A queen on her own, with no ace or king behind her in the same suit, is usually worth nothing.

Spades add tricks in two ways. Top spades are winners in their own right, and extra length wins tricks at the end of the hand once the other three players have run out. A holding of A-K-3 is about two tricks. A holding of 8-6-5-3-2 is worth about one, purely because the last spade or two will still be alive at trick twelve. A short side suit matters too: if you hold no clubs at all and still have spades left, you can trump the first club that is led.

Bidding starts with the player to the dealer's left and moves clockwise, one bid each. A bid is a whole number from 0 to 13, and it is the number of tricks you personally expect to take. There is no passing and no changing your mind once you have spoken. Your bid and your partner's bid are added together into one team contract, and it does not matter which of you wins the tricks.

If you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, your team must take at least 7 of the 13 tricks. The four bids around the table do not have to add up to 13, and in practice they usually total somewhere between 10 and 13. Bidding zero is a special case called nil, which is covered below and is worth avoiding until you can count a hand reliably.

The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. Everyone then plays exactly one card, clockwise, and the four cards together form the trick. Many players call a trick a book. The rule that governs everything is follow suit: if you hold a card in the suit that was led, you must play one. Only when you have none of the led suit are you free to play a spade or throw away a card from another suit.

The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, unless a spade was played, in which case the highest spade wins. Here is the sequence beginners find surprising. Clubs are led, the second player follows with the king of clubs, the third player follows with the three of clubs, and the fourth player holds no clubs at all and plays the two of spades. That two wins the trick and beats the king. The winner of each trick leads the next one.

You may not lead a spade until spades have been broken. Spades are broken the first time somebody plays a spade on a trick that was led with another suit, which can only happen when that player is void in the led suit. Until that moment, leads must come from hearts, diamonds or clubs. There is one exception: if your hand contains nothing but spades, you are allowed to lead one.

The practical effect is that the first few tricks of every hand are played in the side suits, which is exactly when you learn the most about who is short in what. It also means you should not throw away your last heart or last club too eagerly. Running out of side-suit cards early hands the lead back to opponents at the worst moment and can strand you with a hand full of spades you never wanted to lead.

If your team takes at least as many tricks as it bid, you score 10 points per bid trick plus 1 point for every extra trick. A team that bids 7 and takes 8 scores 71. If your team falls short, you lose 10 points per bid trick: bid 7, take 6, and the hand costs you 70. A made nil is worth 100 and a failed nil costs 100, on top of whatever the partner's own bid does.

Those single extra tricks are called bags, and they are the trap in the whole scoring system. They look like free points, but bags accumulate across the entire game, and the tenth one costs your team 100 points while the counter drops back by ten. Games are usually played to 500 points, so 100 points is a fifth of the race handed back for tricks you never needed.

First, after every trick, update one sentence in your head: we bid seven, we have three, we need four more. Second, when your partner is already winning a trick and no opponent is left to play after them, throw your lowest card instead of winning it yourself. Third, when you have no idea what to lead, lead a low card from your longest side suit. Fourth, watch for the moment a player fails to follow a suit and remember it, because they are void in that suit for the rest of the hand.

Fifth, never trump a trick your partner is already winning. Those five habits fix most beginner losses without teaching you a single advanced concept, and they also make your bidding better on their own: once you know what your cards actually did last hand, the next bid stops being a guess.