Partnership trick-taking. Spades are always trump. Bid your team's tricks, make the bid or get bagged.
Setup & play
Standard 52-card deck, 4 players in two teams (partners across the table). Deal all 52 cards, 13 each. The player left of the dealer leads first. Spades are always trump but cannot be led until "broken" — i.e., until a spade has been played as a trump on a non-spade lead, or the leader has only spades left.
Scoring
Each team bids the total tricks they expect to take (each partner bids individually; bids combine). Minimum team bid is usually 4.
Making the bid: 10 × bid + 1 per overtrick. Overtricks ("bags") are penalty currency — every 10 cumulative bags costs the team 100 points (toggle in start form).
Failing the bid: -10 × bid.
Nil: A player bids 0 tricks for a 100-point bonus if they take zero, or -100 if they take any. Blind Nil (declared before looking at the hand) doubles to ±200. Some groups disallow Blind Nil.
Game: First team to 250 wins (configurable).
Variants
- 2-player / 3-player
Both supported. Players individually rather than in teams; bids and bags work the same.
- Suicide Spades
Both partners on the higher-bidding team must bid Nil. Aggressive but classic. (Not toggled in the scorecard — declare house rule manually.)
Common house-rule decisions
These are the questions that come up most often. The Rules tab toggles between the common choices — agree before the first hand or you’ll re-litigate them mid-game.
- Bags penalty — on (default) or off; some groups score overtricks as straight +1 with no cap.
- Allow Blind Nil — off by default.
- Nil value — 100 typical, 50 for milder games, 200 for high-stakes nights.
- Whether a Nil bidder's tricks count toward the partner's bid.
- Joker rules — some decks add 2 jokers as the highest spades.
- Cutthroat (no partnerships) for 4 players.