Spades rules: how to play Spades (and Turkish Batak)

Rules in short: follow suit; the highest trump or the highest card of the suit led wins the trick; make the tricks you bid. This page covers partnership Spades in full (bidding, nil, bags and scoring), the Turkish auction game Batak, bidding strategy and common questions.

Scoring example How to bid Glossary Strategy FAQ Score sheet

Common

52 cards, four players, 13 cards each. You must follow suit. The highest trump wins the trick, otherwise the highest card of the suit led; the winner leads the next trick.

Spades: bidding and scoring

Players sitting across are partners and spades are always trump. Starting left of the dealer each player bids the tricks they expect to take; the team contract is the sum. Making it scores 10 per trick bid plus one per overtrick (a bag); failing loses 10 per trick bid. Every 10 accumulated bags cost 100 points.

Spades: nil and breaking spades

A bid of nil (0) promises no tricks: +100 if kept, −100 otherwise; tricks taken by a failed nil bidder count as bags, not toward the partner's contract. Spades may not be led until a spade has been played on another suit, unless you hold nothing else. First team to 500 wins.

Batak: auction

Everyone plays alone. Starting left of the dealer, bid at least 5 and higher than the previous bid, or pass; if all pass the dealer is held to 5. The high bidder names trump and leads the first trick.

Batak: play and scoring

You must follow suit and, when you can, beat the card currently winning. With none of the suit led you must play a trump, and overtrump if you can. The bidder scores the tricks taken if the bid is made, otherwise loses the bid; the other players score one point per trick. First to 51 wins.

How they differ

Spades is a team game: you play to your partner's bid, watch bags and nil. Batak is every player for themselves: set the bidder or make your own contract, and the duty to beat the table makes every card count.

Fair deal and coach

Before the hand the SHA-256 hash of a secret seed is shown; the order of the 52 cards is a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by HMAC-SHA256(seed, "r:" + i). When the hand ends the seed is revealed and the "Fair deal" badge recomputes it. The coach compares each card by playing out sampled deals and shows the better card when you miss.

Spades scoring example

You bid 4 and your partner bids 3, so your team's contract is 7.

• You take 5 tricks and your partner takes 3: 8 tricks against a contract of 7. The team scores 70 + 1 = 71 points and gets 1 bag.
• You take 4 and your partner takes 2: 6 tricks against 7. The team is set and loses 70 points.
• Your team already had 9 bags and takes 2 more: the bag count passes 10, the team loses 100 points and the count carries on from 1.

Nil is scored separately: if your partner bids nil and takes no tricks, the team gets +100 on top of whatever your own bid scores.

How to bid in Spades

A simple counting method gets most beginners close to the right bid:

• Count 1 trick for each ace, and for each king with at least one other card in its suit.
• Count a queen as half a trick if the suit has three or more cards.
• In spades, count every card beyond the third as a likely trick: long trumps win tricks late in the hand.
• Add 1 for a void or a singleton in a side suit when you hold spades to trump it.
• Round down when unsure. Being set costs 10 points per trick bid, while one extra trick costs only a bag.

Consider nil when you have no aces or kings, few high spades and short suits you can duck under. Your partner should then bid a bit higher and protect you by playing high cards over yours.

Spades glossary

Trick (book)

One round of four cards, one from each player. The winner collects it and leads next. Many American players call a trick a book.

Cut

Playing a spade on a trick when you have no cards of the suit led, also called trumping. The highest spade wins the trick.

Trump

The suit that beats all others. In Spades it is always spades; in Batak the winning bidder chooses it.

Contract

The number of tricks a team must take: the sum of the partners' bids.

Bag (overtrick)

Each trick taken above the contract. Ten bags cost 100 points.

Set

Failing to make the contract.

Nil

A bid of zero tricks, worth 100 points if kept.

Breaking spades

The first time a spade is played on another suit; after that spades may be led.

Void, singleton

Holding no cards, or exactly one card, in a suit.

Renege

Failing to follow suit when you could have. It is against the rules and is usually punished.

Blind nil

A nil bid made before looking at your cards, worth more points. A common house rule, not used on Snug Table.

Spades strategy for beginners

• Play to the team contract, not your own bid. Once your team has its tricks, stop winning extra ones to avoid bags.
• Count spades. There are thirteen. Knowing how many are out tells you whether your high side-suit cards are still safe.
• Lead your partner's suit. If your partner shows strength in a suit, leading it helps them take the tricks they bid.
• Set the opponents when they bid high. When the other team bids a lot, every trick you take from them costs them 10 points per trick bid.
• Cover a nil partner. Play your highest card when your partner might be forced to win the trick.

Where Spades comes from

Spades is an American game from the whist family, first played in the United States in the 1930s. It spread widely during the Second World War, when soldiers played it in their spare time, and it remains a favorite at family gatherings, in college dorms and online. Batak is the Turkish relative in the same family, played alone with an auction for trump.