Spades Cheat Sheet

Four players in two fixed partnerships, partners sitting opposite each other. A standard 52-card deck with no jokers is dealt out completely, thirteen cards each. Every hand is thirteen tricks — no more, no less, no cards left over.

Before a card is played, each player bids the number of tricks they expect to win. Bidding runs clockwise from the dealer's left. The two bids on a side are added into one team contract: if you bid four and your partner bids five, your side owes nine tricks and it does not matter which of you wins them.

The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. Everyone must follow the led suit if they hold it. The highest card of the led suit wins — unless a spade was played, in which case the highest spade wins.

Spades are trump in every hand. No suit is ever named or chosen. You may not lead a spade until spades are broken, which happens the moment any player plays a spade on a trick led in another suit. The single exception is that a leader holding nothing but spades must lead one.

The winner of each trick leads the next. After the thirteenth trick, compare each side's trick count to its contract and score. Deal passes clockwise, bags carry forward, first side to 500 wins.

Within every suit the order is ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. The ace is always high and there is no low-ace rule anywhere in Spades.

Spades outrank the entire rest of the deck. The two of spades beats the ace of hearts, the ace of diamonds and the ace of clubs. That one line is what makes a long spade suit worth more than a fistful of off-suit honours, and it is the fact beginners forget most often.

A spade only matters if a spade legally reaches the trick. If hearts are led and you hold hearts, you follow with a heart and your spades do nothing for that trick. Trump beats other suits; it does not beat the obligation to follow suit.

Standard Spades has no jokers. The joker-joker-deuce-deuce variant adds both jokers as the two highest trumps and promotes the two of clubs to a spade, removing the two of hearts and two of diamonds to keep the count at 52. If nobody announced that version, you are not playing it.

Start at zero and add. Ace of spades: one trick, every time. King of spades: one trick, or half a trick if it is your only spade. Queen of spades: one trick if you hold at least two other spades to protect it, otherwise nothing.

Spade length: count every spade past the third as one extra trick. Thirteen spades split four ways average 3.25 each, so your fourth, fifth and sixth spade are tricks nobody else can beat once the top spades have gone.

Off-suit aces: one trick each. Off-suit kings: one trick if you hold at least one small card in the same suit behind it, half a trick bare. Off-suit queens: nothing on their own — count one only when the queen sits alongside the ace or king of that suit.

Shortness plus trump: a void in a side suit is worth one extra trick when you hold four or more spades, because you get to ruff and repeat. A singleton is worth about half. Shortness with only two spades is worth nothing, because you will be out of trump long before the suit comes round again.

Add the halves, round down, bid that. A player who bids what they count is a good partner. A player who adds one for optimism costs the side a set every third hand, and a player who subtracts one for safety costs the side a hundred points in bags by the end of the game.

Sanity check: at a normal table the four bids total ten, eleven or twelve — not thirteen. Some tricks are always unclaimed, and those are the overtricks. If your table routinely bids thirteen or fourteen, somebody at it is overbidding and it is worth working out who.

Contract made: ten points per trick bid. Bid seven, take seven or more, score seventy for the contract.

Overtricks: one point each, plus one bag each. Bid seven and take nine and you score seventy-two and collect two bags.

Set: minus ten points per trick bid, and no credit at all for the tricks you did win. Bid seven and take six and you lose seventy. The penalty is flat — missing by one trick and missing by five cost exactly the same.

Bag penalty: when a side's running bag count reaches ten, it immediately loses a hundred points and ten bags come off the counter. Any surplus stays and starts the next pile.

Nil made: one hundred points. Nil failed: minus one hundred. Your partner's bid is scored separately either way, so a made nil alongside a made bid of four is a hundred and forty points.

Blind nil made: two hundred. Blind nil failed: minus two hundred. Same all-or-nothing condition — one trick kills it.

Game ends at 500. Many houses also end it at minus 200 for the trailing side. If both sides cross 500 on the same hand, the higher total wins.

A bag is one trick over your contract. It is worth a single point when you take it, which is why beginners ignore it, and the tenth one is worth minus a hundred, which is why anyone who has lost a game this way never ignores it again.

Ten bags cost roughly what ten made tricks earn. A side carrying nine bags into a hand is playing a different game from a side carrying two: it should bid its hand up, because a set at minus fifty is cheaper than the bag that triggers the penalty.

The counter is cumulative for the whole game and only ever resets by subtraction. Nine bags plus three bags is minus a hundred points and two bags left on the counter, not a clean slate.

Practical rule: say your bag count out loud between hands. If you cannot state it from memory before you bid, you are guessing at the most important number on the sheet.

Failed nil tricks normally become bags. In the most common ruleset, tricks won by a player who bid nil count toward the partnership's bag total even though the failed nil already cost a hundred. A few houses exempt them. Settle it before the first deal.

Nil is a bid of zero, scored on its own: a hundred points for taking no trick, minus a hundred for taking even one. Your partner's numeric bid stands alone and is scored normally, so the side can make a nil and be set on the same hand.

Bid nil on a hand with no aces, no bare kings, few spades, and small spades. Three spades headed by the six is safe. Two spades headed by the queen is not, because the queen has to be played eventually and there are only three cards above it. Long weak side suits help — a five-card run of small hearts is easy to shed.

Your partner's job on your nil is to cover you: take the lead, hold it, and play above you on any trick you cannot escape. Their job is not to win everything, it is to make sure you never win anything.

Beating an opposing nil means leading your lowest cards. The nil bidder has to follow suit, and a low lead makes them play a card that somebody must beat. Lead the suits where you hold the small ones, keep an ace back so you can regain the lead, and save one very low card for the endgame.

Blind nil is nil declared before you look at your hand, for double stakes. Most houses only permit it when your side is at least a hundred points behind, and many allow partners to pass one card each after the declaration. It is a comeback tool, not a bid you make because you feel lucky.

Partner leads an ace and you are void: do not trump it. You would be spending a trump to win a trick your side already won.

You are third to play and your partner is winning the trick: play low and keep the winner for later.

You are third to play and an opponent is winning: play the cheapest card that beats them, not your best one.

You hold the ace and king of spades: do not lead them early unless you are hunting a nil. Trump control at trick eleven is worth more than two tricks at trick two.

You hold a singleton king in a side suit: do not lead it. Wait for somebody else to open the suit so your king can fall on the second round with the ace already gone.

You go void early and hold five spades: ruff the first chance you get. That is precisely the trick you counted when you bid.

Your side bid four and has taken four: start ducking. Play low, refuse tricks, and never trump anything you are not forced to.

Your side bid eleven: lead spades immediately and keep leading them until the opponents are out, before your side-suit winners start getting cut.

You are nine bags deep with a marginal hand: bid the extra trick. Minus fifty for a set beats minus a hundred for the tenth bag.

Opponents bid nil and you are on lead: lead your lowest card in your longest suit, not an ace.

You cannot follow suit and have no useful spade: throw the highest card from your shortest useless suit, to create a void you can ruff into later.

You are on lead in the last three tricks holding a spade and two side winners: cash the side winners first and keep the spade for the end, when it cannot be over-ruffed.