And, rounding out a January quartet of classic card games, we take a look at Spades.
Spades is a plain-trick game in which spades are always trumps. It is most often played as a partnership game by four players, but there are also versions for three, two or six players.
Looking at the most standard four-player version; players are in fixed partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other.
A standard pack of 52 cards is used, with all 52 cards being dealt and everyone having 13 when the deal is complete.
“In Spades, all four players bid a number of tricks,” details the excellent card game resource www.pagat.com. “Each team adds together the bids of the two partners, and the total is the number of tricks that team must try to win in order to get a positive score. The bidding begins with the player to dealer’s left and continues clockwise around the table. Everyone must bid a number, and in theory any number from zero to 13 is allowed. Unlike other games with bidding, there is no requirement for each bid to be higher than the last one, and players are not allowed to pass. There is no second round of bidding …
“A bid of 0 tricks is known as Nil. This is a declaration that that the player who bid Nil will not win any tricks during the play. There is an extra bonus for this if it succeeds and a penalty if it fails. The partnership also has the objective of winning the number of tricks bid by the Nil’s partner. It is not possible to bid no tricks without bidding a Nil. If you don’t want to go for the Nil bonus or penalty you must bid at least one …
“After everyone has bid and before the first lead, the bidder may exchange two cards with their partner - the bidder discards two cards face down; the partner picks them up and gives back two cards face-down in return.”
From that point it’s rather straight forward. You must follow suit if able; if unable to follow suit, the player may play any card.
If a spade (trump) is played the highest spade in a round wins the trick.
Spades may not be led until either some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit, of course), or the leader has nothing but spades left in hand.
A side that takes at least as many tricks as its bid calls for receives a score equal to 10 times its bid. Additional tricks (overtricks) are worth an extra one point each. There are a few other quirks to scoring, in particular regarding nil bids. A bid of blind nil scores twice as much as an ordinary nil - it wins 200 points if successful and loses 200 points if it fails. If a bid of nil fails - that is, the bidder takes at least one trick - the bidder’s side loses 100 points, but still receives any amount scored for the partner’s bid.
Overall Spades is a very straight forward game, one which falls into the category of whist and several others. It can be learned rather easily, and is certainly worth trying on a card night if you have not played it before.
