A typical Spades game

Spades is a card game with trick-taking and bidding played by two teams of two players each. It is free to play two days a week.

Background

Spades is a trick-taking game, having evolved directly from Bid Whist and Contract Bridge. The major difference between Spades and its ancestors is the set trump suit of Spades (hence the name). Spades was developed in the Midwest and, with the advent of online play, has quickly become one of the most popular card games around the world.

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to be the first to reach (or pass) a set point goal. The game will also end if either team's score becomes equal to or lower than the negative point total. When the game ends, the team with the higher score wins.

500 point games are the standard for any professional or competitive Spades games and tournaments. However, players in Y!PP choose to play to 300 points more frequently since 500 point games can take up to several hours.

After the hands are dealt, players begin bidding with the player sitting to the left of the dealer. A player's bid reflects the number of tricks they expect to win. A player may bid anywhere from Nil (0) to 13. once a team wins the number of tricks they bid, they receive 10*Contract points. So a successful team bid of 7 garners the team 70 points.

If a team fails to make their bid, their contract is deemed Set and they lose the number of points they would have earned for a successful contract. If a team takes more tricks than they bid, they receive Overtricks or Bags. Each bag is scored as one extra point. However, once a team receives 10 bags, they lose 100 points. So always bid tight to avoid sets and bags.

Basic Bidding Strategy

Bidding is the core skill to spades. The basics of counting winners is intuitive to anyone who has played a card game before. However, bidding correctly every time requires many hours of play and recognizing the many subtleties to reading hands.

Counting

This is the basic strategy to bidding and will yield you fairly accurate results. Counting is when you look at your hand in a vacuum and count how many high cards you have.

Here we count the honors in our hand: one Ace, two Kings and one Queen. By counting winners only, we would make a bid of 4. However, counting Queens is usually not a good idea. With 1 or 2 cards in the suit, your Queen is likely to be overtaken. With more, it is likely to be ruffed (trumped).

Trump

In Spades, there is one suit that is more powerful than all others: Spades. When spades are played in a trick (either lead or off suit) the highest spade will win. This means that a lowly deuce of spades will take out someone's non-spade Ace. Many times, your hand will have no honors (therefore a 0 by straight counting) but will have enough trump to warrant a bid.

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By counting only, we have 4 tricks. But we're going to take our strategy to the next level and consider what trump we and other people have. A good rule of thumb is to only bid Aces and Kings. Very often, a player will be short suited and trump on the third lead of a suit, turning your winner Q into a loser. So we're tossing that trick out of the window. We only have one Ace though, this means that every subsequent play of Diamonds can be won with a trump. So we'll add 1 to our bid, since we can ruff subsequent diamonds. 2 tricks would be risky, as we do not want to ruff our partner's K or Q. This gives us a grand total of 4 to bid on this hand.

Suit Length

Analyzing the number of cards you have in each suit will help you bid much more accurately and, in many circumstances, will keep you from being set or allow you to ruff your opponent into a set. On the most basic strategy level, length in a suit increases the chance of another person being short or void in that corresponding suit. This would lead to a devaluing of your Honor cards. While having K, A in the same suit will usually garner 2 tricks, having 2, 3, 6, 10, K, A will often times garner one trick before trump is played. As a rule of thumb, don't bid K's when you have 5 or more in that suit. Always bid Aces.

The exception to this is spades, of course -- the longer you are in spades the better. Having no cards in a non-trump suit makes your spades stronger as well, since you can trump on any trick played in that suit. Conversely, a "balanced hand", with at least three cards in it of every suit, is weak because it your opportunities for playing trumps are limited. As a rule of thumb, you can bid one trick for every spade over your first three. So if you have five spades, add two to your bid.

Advanced players use an imbalance in one or more suits to their advantage. For example:

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In this hand I am short in two suits, have an average distribution in one and am long in another. Also, I notice my opponent's bid: 1. A bid of 1 usually means they hold an Honor spade or an Ace with no ducking room. We can also assume that she is short on spades, having no more than 2 spades (2 spades of any value + an honor results in a minimum bid of 2). This means that there are most likely 8 spades distributed between the other two bidders, with only one honor among them (We hold 2 and the player to our right likely holds one). With our shortness in 2 suits, and disproportionate power in Spades, we bid 4, expecting to hit a ruff. The result of the hand was a 8-4 contract with my partner and I taking 10 because Marthe was void in Hearts and cashed in on each of her spades.

As you can see, overbidding a long-suit can be just as tactically sound as under-bidding one. Remember to read all of the signs available to you and maximize your point earning!

Nil

The Nil, the only bid that can have entire books devoted to it. The strategy and choosing of this bid often makes or breaks the winners. In professional play, the bid is valued at 100 points, however here on Y!PP it is valued at 50.

Playing nils is the exact opposite of how you play a regular bid. The object of a nil is to not take any tricks. By taking no tricks, you are awarded with a nice score. In fact, the score is so nice that many players choose to Nil in lieu of a 1 or 2 bid. However, finding a nil out of a 2 bid is a risky proposition, and only experienced players should go for it.

Nils are most successful when you have no honor cards. However, there are a multitude of situations where having honor cards is not a factor. If you have 3 or more low or mid cards in addition to your honors, then you will likely survive the bid. If you are void or short in a suit, you will likely have a chance to sluff the honors on the off suit.

Many biddable hands can be made into nils, I have found it more useful when deciding to nil to look for things that will break the bid:

You have 4 or more spades.
You have the A or K of spades.
You have a solo honor card in any suit

If your hand lacks any of those, then it is possible to nil. It is up to the player to decide if the risk is worth the reward.

Blind Nil

Blind Nil is similar to normal Nil. The exceptions are:

You can only bid blind nil when you are at least 100 points down.
You do not see what cards you have before making your bid.
After bidding blind nil, you and your partner will swap two cards. This will allow you to drop any sure winners (such as the Ace of Spades), and improve your chances of making the bid.

A successful blind nil scores 100 points. A failed blind nil will subtract 100 points. It is therefore generally a good idea to bid it when possible. It is very rare for a Blind Nil to fail.

Bidding blind nil when two or three other players have made very low bids can be risky. Somebody has to have the high cards and that person is probably you! If most of the honor cards are in your hidden hand, even the ability to trade two cards may not save you.

Covering a Nil

If your partner has declared a Nil bid, the responsibility is on you to see it through! Nil hands are generally very easy to play. Covering a nil is much tougher. Some tips:

Your main responsibility on the hand is to make sure your partner makes their nil bid. Don't worry about your bid (Unless it is 5+), bags, or the opponent's bid.
When you are leading, play as high as possible so that your partner can toss cards underneath. Play leads from your strongest suit, as well. For example: if you have the A-2 of diamonds and the Q-10-9-6 of clubs, it is often a better idea to lead the queen and save the Ace for a diamond lead by your opponents.
PAY ATTENTION to what your partner plays! Know when they've gone out of a suit so that you can lead that suit and let them discard high cards of another suit. Also, pay attention to their highest card in a suit. If you lead the Ace of hearts and they play an 8 of hearts underneath it, that implies that you can safely lead anything from a King through a 7 in hearts.
Let your opponents do the heavy lifting, whenever possible. There are times when you will want to play high to take the lead, but for the most part, whenever your opponents cover your partner, take that opportunity to throw away your lowest card in that suit so you don't get stuck playing it later. Many a nil has been broken by a partner who did not take the opportunity to rid himself of a 2 and then was later forced to lead it.
Save your spades, if possible, for situations where your partner is stuck with the high card in a suit that you do not have any of yourself.

Playing Against a Nil

It is important to know how to cover your partner when they bid Nil, but it is just as important to know how to play against a Nil to give you the maximum chance of setting them. Most of the times, it is the opponents who give the Nil bidder the Nil by poor play. There are 2 ways to play when playing against a Nil:

Setting the Nil
Setting the covering bid

When trying to set a Nil, the overall bid should be at most 11. Play low if possible before the Nil bidder, and as high as possible after, unless the Nil bidder plays a high card (8+) in which case duck with as high a card as possible. Look at what the Nil bidder discards. If after an A the discard is a K, then remember to lead that suit whenever possible. However, if after an A the discard is low, try to avoid the suit. Also, if after a few tricks the A or K hasn't come down, chances are the Nil bidder has it, in which case lead the suit!

If your partnership thinks the Nil bidder has a few spades, or 1-2 high spades, you should be ruffing as high as possible whenever possible, unless the Nil bidder can play a spade after you. This would leave the Nil bidder's partner unable to ruff without putting the Nil bid in serious risk.

When trying to set the covering bid, it is important to remember that you normally need to switch to setting the Nil halfway in the hand. This strategy should be done with bids totalling 10 or more, as you do not want to bag too much. Also, with a covering bid of 1 or 2, this strategy isn't the best.

Lead with middle cards, such as Jacks and 10s, which you did not plan on winning with. This is especially true when going before the covering player. If the card is able to run (The covering bidder would not know whether to go over it, risking the nil, or duck, risking the bid) then carry on. This will get you the extra trick or 2 to set the bid. Since Nils are only 50 points here, the set is worth a lot more, since a high bid means the Nil bidder most likely has a very easy Nil. If, however, the card gets overtaken, try and set the Nil unless the Nil bidder has no high cards in the suit.

Awareness of your Partner

If your partner bids before you do, make sure and consider their bid when making yours. For example, if your partner has bid eight tricks, they have an exceptionally good hand, and are probably counting on winning tricks that you might also be counting on winning. Lower your bid.

Likewise, if your partner bids blind nil, raise your bid by one or two tricks to account for the cards coming your way. Indeed, if your partner bids nil at all, generally it's a good idea to inflate your bid a bit since your opponents will likely try and "break" their nil, allowing you to win tricks with cards that normally wouldn't generate any points, if you play it properly.

Advanced Strategy

Play For The Set

Beginning players, in general, worry about two things: making their bid and avoiding bags. Obviously, both of those are good things to do, but it leads to a very passive, defensive style of play.

More experienced players will aim to set their opponents whenever possible. The rationale is simple: if your opponents have bid even a low 5 tricks, setting them costs them 100 points (the 50 they would have made and the 50 they will be docked for the set). As you can see, almost any amount of overtricks, even at an eventual cost of 9 points apiece, will be worth it to make the set.

Even though a set is worth its weight (and more) in overtricks, though, in practice, sets should only be attempted when the total number of tricks bid on the table is 11 or more. In that case, aim to take every trick you can and only start avoiding bags when it is guaranteed that both you and your opponents will make their bid.

Avoiding Bags

This is a very obvious strategy. Since bags cost 9 points each (10 bags means 10 points gained, 100 lost), it should be obvious that these should be avoided. However, in most Spades games to around 300, there will not be enough hands for you to be bagged, therefore, in all hands with 11 or more tricks bid, go for the set! Extra bags generally mean extra points, resulting in 1 less trick to win the game. It is only when playing to 500+ that avoiding bags would be a good idea.

Avoiding bags sounds simple, but is much harder in practice. What if you don't make your bid? The general principle is to duck everything, and playing the highest card possible when your partner would win a trick. It is still VERY IMPORTANT that you make your bid! Bagging would cost you 100 points, at most once per 500 point game (If you get bagged more, consider learning how to bid better). Getting set for most hands would cost close to, or more than that. Therefore, if you are not sure if you will make your bid, get it first then discard. Experience will teach a lot more: when to discard winners before making the bid, when to play high because your partner is likely to have to take the trick anyway.

The "Crossfire"

A "crossfire", also known as a "crossruff", is a lucky break when you and your partner have each run out of a different suit early in the hand. Lead the suit your partner is out of, and he can take the trick with a low spade (that otherwise would not have won a trick). Return the favor by sending your partner a lead in the suit your partner is out of so they can do the same, and repeat the "crossfire" pattern until your opponents are able to stop you! The additional tricks gained by a crossruff will often be enough to set your unlucky opponents!

"Second Hand Low, Third Hand High"

Using a spade to take a trick in second position (right after the lead) is rarely a good move. It leaves you open for the third player to take the trick with a higher spade, thus rendering one of your trump cards useless. Unless you know you have a winning card in the suit, it's a good idea to drop a low card in the second seat so that you're not wasting a potential winner that will just be beaten by your opponent.

Conversely, in third position you generally want to play to win the trick unless your partner led an unbeatable card. At best, you take the trick, and at worst, you force the fourth player to blow a high card.

NOT Covering a Nil

If the opposing team has bid very high, you may be better off breaking the nil.

Example from actual play: North bid nil and South bid 4. West and East bid a combined 9. During the hand, West and East tried to set North with diamonds. South had run out of diamonds early and had a few spades but chose to not protect his partner.

Why?

South realized that he was very likely to cover the 4 bid but was extremely unlikely to take a fifth trick. Allowing the nil to be broken would deny East and West a crucial trick. He played a heart instead of a spade and his partner's nil was broken. The conserved spade was used to win a later trick.

By the end of the hand, East and West had 8 tricks, North had a broken nil and South had 4 tricks. North and South lost only 10 points (-50 for the broken nil and +40 for the 4 bid) but East and West lost a crushing 90 points. If South had played the hand conventionally, the hand would have been tied 90-90. Deliberately failing to cover the nil yielded a powerful 80 point advantage.

Terminology

Bags, Overtrick, Overage Point - The number of tricks a team wins over their combined bid.

Bag Set, Sandbagging - A team accruing 10 bags loses 100 points. Sandbag may also mean to attempt to make the other team sandbag.

(to) Break Nil - Force an opponent who has bid nil or blind nil to win a trick, typically by leading a low card and forcing them to play a higher one due to lack of other cards in their hand.

(to) Break Spades - Play a spade as a trump when void in the lead suit.

(to) Cash In - Use a card to win a trick, especially by ruffing.

Contract, Team Bid - The combined individual bids of the team.

Control - After winning a trick, a player is given control. They are allowed to play any suit except spades if it is not broken yet.

High Cards, Honor Cards - J, Q, K, A.

Lead Suit - The suit of the first card played in a trick. Players must play a card of the same suit unless they are void.

Long Suit - 4 or more cards in a given suit.

Low Cards - 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Mid Cards - 7, 8, 9, 10.

Nil - A special bid where a player says they will not win any tricks.

Nil set - When a Nil bid wins a trick.

Ruff - To take a trick with a spade when spades were not led.

Set - When a team does not win the number of tricks it bid.

Short Suit - 1 or 2 cards in a suit.

Sluff - To play an unwanted card on an off suit or when it loses to a higher valued card.

Strong Suit - A large proportion of high cards in a suit.

Trick - A round of playing, consisting of one card from each of the four players.

Trump - In trick-taking games, a suit whose cards are higher than any card from a non-trump suit. In spades, the spades suit is always trump, so the highest spade in a trick always wins.

Winner, Counter - A card that is likely to win a trick.

Void - Having no cards of a particular suit.

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