Remember the nil (or zero) bid? If you can pull of a nil bid and get no tricks, you receive 100 points! This will be in addition the number that your partner wins or loses. Each round you keep track of the number of bags you get, and if you reach a total of 10 bags, you lose 100 points on that round. Back to the example: if we bid 5 and get 7, then we get 2 bags.īags can also be bad. Sandbagging: Each trick we win that is over the bid is known as a bag. So if we bid 5, then get 4 tricks - we lose 50 points! Eek! This means we lose 10 points for each bid. However, if we don't get 5 tricks, we're in trouble. This means if my partner and I bid 5, then get 7 tricks, our total score for that round will come to 52. Additional tricks (overtricks) are only worth one point apiece. If you get exactly 5, you win 10x your bid, so 50 points. If you bid 5, you want to get at least 5. So we've already talked about how the goal is to get the number of tricks that you and your partner bid. The winner of each trick leads on the next.Īfter the first spade has been played, then spades are 'broken.' Scoring If no spades are played, the highest card wins of the suit that was played first. So even if someone plays the Ace of diamonds, and I play the 2 of spades, I win that trick if no other spades are played. If someone plays a spade, that spade trumps all other cards EXCEPT for higher spades. If you do not have the same suit, you can play any card of any suit! The card must be of the same suit as the person who started (in this case, the person to the left of the dealer). Then, again in clockwise, each player lays down a card (trick) face up. It can be any heart, diamond or club, but no spades. Playing SpadesĪfter all of the bidding is done, the player to the dealers left begins by playing any card EXCEPT for a spade. There's also a penalty for bidding nil and getting 1 or more tricks. Why would anyone do that though? Well, there's a huge bonus if you can bid nil and succeed. This is basically a player trying NOT to win any tricks. Billy and Sarah's goal is to win at least 5 tricks based on their bids (4+1), Terrance and Beyonce will attempt to win at least 7 (4+3).Īs mentioned previously, a bid of zero is also called a nil bid. A bid of zero or 'nil' is another strategy we'll talk about shortly. But be smart and remember that it's very difficult to get all or even half of the tricks. Bidding then continues clockwise around the table. The first player to bid is the person to the left of the dealer. This is the number of tricks that team has to win in order to get a positive score. The teams then add together the total number of bids. Before each round of Spades begins, each player will bid (or guess) how many tricks they will take. Biddingīidding is simply guessing how many 'tricks' you can take. The dealer will deal out all of the cards so each player will end up with 13 to start. The goal is to accumulate points, and the first to 500 points wins. You are on the same team as the person across from you and the same goes for the other two. In a typical game, there are four players and two team.

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