Spades

Play Spades free online — no login or download. Partner with a computer teammate versus two AI opponents, bid your tricks, and race to 500 with nil bids and bags.

Spades — rules and how to play

This page documents the exact Spades rules used in Solitarium.io.

Objective

Spades is a four-player partnership game. You sit South and partner with North against the East and West computer players. Each hand, every player bids how many tricks they expect to take; a partnership scores by making its combined bid. The first team to reach 500 points wins the match.

The deal

  • A standard 52-card deck is dealt evenly: 13 cards to each of the four players.
  • Spades are always trump. The other three suits (hearts, diamonds, clubs) have no trump power.
  • Card rank runs high to low: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
  • The deal rotates: after each hand, the deal passes one seat to the left.

Bidding

  • Starting to the dealer’s left, each player bids the number of tricks (0–13) they think they can win.
  • The two partners’ bids are added together to form the team’s contract. Example: if you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, your team must take at least 7 tricks.
  • A bid of 0 is a Nil bid — a promise to take no tricks at all for a bonus (see Scoring).
  • Bids are final the moment you submit them — there is no take-back.

Playing a hand

  • A trick is one small round: each of the four players plays one card in turn, and whoever plays the highest relevant card wins all four cards. There are 13 tricks in every hand — your bid is how many of those 13 you expect to win.
  • The player to the dealer’s left leads the first trick. Play proceeds clockwise (to your left); each player plays one card.
  • You must follow the suit that was led if you can. If you have no card of that suit, you may play any card, including a spade (trump).
  • The highest spade played wins the trick. If no spade is played, the highest card of the suit that was led wins.
  • The winner of a trick leads the next one.

The “spades broken” rule

  • You cannot lead a spade until spades have been “broken.” Spades break the first time any spade is played — normally when a player who cannot follow the led suit trumps in, but also if a player forced to lead spades (see the exception below) plays one.
  • The one exception: if a player has nothing but spades in hand, they may lead a spade even if spades are not yet broken.
  • This rule keeps trump from being led on the very first trick and shapes early strategy.

Scoring

  • Make your contract: if your team takes at least its combined bid, you score 10 points per bid trick. A team bid of 7 that is made scores 70.
  • Set (fail): if your team takes fewer tricks than its combined contract, you lose 10 points per bid trick. A missed bid of 7 costs −70. (A Nil bidder’s tricks do not count toward this contract total — they are scored separately, see the Nil lines below.)
  • Bags (overtricks): every trick above your bid is a “bag,” worth +1 point but tracked separately. They are a trap — see the bag penalty.
  • Bag penalty: each time a team accumulates 10 bags, it loses 100 points and 10 bags are cleared (the remainder carries over). Consistently overshooting your bid is punished.
  • Nil made: a player who bid Nil and takes zero tricks earns their team +100. Their partner’s contract is scored separately.
  • Nil failed: a Nil bidder who takes even one trick costs their team −100, and the tricks they took count as bags.
  • First team to 500 points wins. If both teams cross 500 in the same hand, the higher score wins; a tie plays another hand.

Controls and helpers

  • Bidding: tap a number from 0 to 13 when it is your turn to bid.
  • Playing: tap a card in your hand to play it to the trick. Every card stays visible and tappable — if the one you picked is not legal, the table tells you why (you still hold the led suit, or spades are not broken yet) and your turn continues.
  • The computer players bid and play automatically after a short pause so you can follow the action.
  • Game speed: use Options to slow the table down or speed it up. The setting is remembered for your next visit.
  • No undo: like real Spades, a card played to a trick is committed. There is no take-back — bid and play deliberately.
  • No hints: Spades always leaves you a legal move, so there is nothing to get stuck on — reading the table is the game.

Saving your match

  • Your match auto-saves locally in the browser and restores if you refresh or reopen the tab.

A short history of Spades

Spades was invented in the United States in the late 1930s and spread rapidly during World War II, when soldiers wanted a partnership trick-taking game that was quick to learn and easy to interrupt. Its simple trump structure — one fixed trump suit, no bidding for trump — made it ideal for barracks and downtime.

After the war it became a fixture on American college campuses and later one of the most-played card games online, from early internet game rooms to modern apps. The core remains the partnership bid: two players who cannot see each other’s hands must together predict and deliver a number of tricks.

Strategy tips

  • Count your sure tricks before bidding. Aces, protected Kings, and the top spades are your reliable winners. Bid what you can realistically take, not what you hope for.
  • Respect the bags. Taking more tricks than you bid feels safe but quietly builds toward a −100 penalty. Sometimes the right play is to deliberately lose a trick you could win.
  • Support a partner’s Nil. If your partner bid Nil, take tricks yourself and play high to cover them, so an opponent cannot force your partner to win one.
  • Attack an opponent’s Nil. If an opponent bid Nil, lead low cards to try to stick them with a trick they cannot avoid.
  • Hold high spades to control key tricks. Trump is most valuable late — spend it to make your contract or to set the opponents, not to grab early overtricks.
  • Lead from length in side suits. Leading your long non-spade suit can exhaust opponents and set up your smaller cards as winners once they run out.

What is a Nil bid?

A Nil bid is a declaration that you will take zero tricks in the hand. If you succeed, your team gains 100 points; if you take even one trick, your team loses 100 and those tricks become bags. Nil is powerful but risky, and it changes how both partners play — your partner will often try to win tricks aggressively to keep them away from you. This version does not include the higher-risk “Blind Nil” variant.

What are bags in Spades?

A bag (or “sandbag”) is a trick taken beyond your contracted bid. Each bag scores just 1 point, but they accumulate: every time a team reaches 10 bags, it is penalized 100 points and the counter resets, carrying any remainder. The bag rule discourages wildly under-bidding to grab safe tricks, and it makes precise bidding — and occasionally throwing a trick — a real skill.

Can I play Spades with fewer than four players?

Traditional Spades is a four-player partnership game, and that is what Solitarium implements: you and a computer partner against two computer opponents. Three-handed “Cutthroat” Spades and other player-count variants exist in the wider Spades family, but the four-player partnership game is the standard version and the one taught here.

Can I undo a move in Spades?

No. In Spades a card played to a trick is committed, and a bid is final the moment you submit it. Solitarium keeps that faithful — there is no undo. This is intentional: reading the table and committing to a plan is central to the game.

Sources and further reading

These references informed the rules, scoring, and strategy notes on this page.