Spades Rules
These are the rules I use for Spades. I got them from John McLeod's pagat.com, which has rules for pretty much all card games. (C) John McLeod, 2011 - reprinted with permission.
The teams
The four players are in fixed partnerships, with partners sitting opposite
each other. Deal and play are clockwise.
Rank of Cards
A standard pack of 52 cards is used. The cards, in each suit, rank from
highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
The Deal
The first dealer is chosen at random, and the turn to deal rotates
clockwise. The cards are shuffled and then dealt singly, in clockwise order
beginning with the player on dealer's left, until all 52 cards have been
dealt and everyone has 13.
The Bidding
In Spades, all four players bid a number of tricks. 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 0 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 - bids once made cannot be altered.
Example: South deals; West bids 3; North bids 1;
East bids 4; South bids 4. The objective of North and South is to win at
least 5 tricks (4+1), East and West try to win at least 7 (4+3).
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 1.
The Play of the Hand
The player to dealer's left leads any card except a spade to the first
trick. Each player, in turn, clockwise, must follow suit if able; if
unable to follow suit, the player may play any card.
A trick containing a spade is won by the highest spade played; if no spade
is played, the trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. The winner
of each trick leads to the next. 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.
Playing the first spade is known as "breaking" spades.
A Boston is when one team gets all 13 tricks in a round.
Scoring
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.
Sandbagging rule: Overtricks are colloquially known as
bags. A side which (over several deals) accumulates ten or more bags has
100 points deducted from its score. Any bags beyond ten are carried over
to the next cycle of ten overtricks - that is if they reached twenty
overtricks they would lose another 100 points and so on.
Example: Suppose a team whose score is 337 bids 5 tricks
and they have 7 bags carried over from the previous rounds. If they win 7
tricks they score 52, taking their score to 389 (and their bags to 9). If
they win 8 tricks they score 53, but lose 100 because they now have 10 bags,
and their score becomes 290 (337 + 53 - 100). If they win 9 tricks they score
54 and lose 100, bringing their score to 291.
If a side does not make its bid, they lose 10 points for each trick they bid.
If a bid of nil is successful, the nil bidder's side receives 100 points.
This is in addition to the score won (or lost) by the partner of the nil
bidder for tricks made. 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.
When a nil fails, the tricks won by the nil bidder do not count towards
making the partner's bid, but do count as bags for the team.
The side which reaches 500 points first wins the game. If both sides reach
500 points in a single deal, the side with the higher score wins.
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About Spades
This online version of the classic card game Spades was made by me. My name is Einar Egilsson and over there on the left is my current Facebook profile picture!
Spades is the fourth card game I've made, the other three are Hearts,
Shithead and Crazy Eights.
Spades is very similar to an Icelandic game I used to play, called 'Kani'. It is the first game I've done where there's any kind
of team play going on, which made it interesting to write. I hope I've made your partner, Bill, smart enough that it's not annoying
to play with him :)
The game is made using html+JavaScript+css with jQuery used for the animations. All the graphics used for the game
I found at OpenClipArt, a great site with free graphics. The excellent
playing card images were made by Nicu Buculei, and the player images were made
by Gerald G.
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This is version 1.17.5 of Spades.
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