Learn to Play Spades

Grab four people - 2 teams of 2 with each partner sitting across from each other.

Choose a person to be the first dealer. The cards are then shuffled and dealt face down, clockwise starting with the player to the left. Optionally, the person to the right of the dealer can cut the cards before they're dealt. Everyone should now have 13 cards. After each round, the person to the left becomes the dealer.

After the cards have been dealt, each player can look at and organize their cards how they see fit. Again, starting with the player to the left of the dealer and moving clockwise, every player then bids on how many "books" (also known as "tricks") that they think they can win for the round. Although very unlikely, a player can bid at most 13 books. As a team, the combined bids should be no less than 4 books*. This 4 book bid is also known as bidding "Board." Although there will be 13 hands played within a round, the total number of bids do not need to equal 13. It should be noted that this bidding process is the only time players can converse with each other.

An example of the dealing and bidding flow may be as follows:

1. South deals
2. West bids 2
3. North bids 3
4. East bids 3
5. South bids 5

The South and North players need to win a combined 8 books (5 + 3) at least, while East and West will try to bring in a combined 5 (3 + 2).

The player to left of the dealer leads with any card except a spade. Going clockwise, each player must follow the leading suit. If a player does not have the suit of the leading card, he/she/they may play any card. If a spade is played for the first time (known as "Breaking spades"), any person may lead with a spade in subsequent rounds. When a player does not have the leading suit and proceeds with a spade, this player is said to have "cut." A spade may also be played if the leader has nothing but spades left in hand.

A book for the round is won by either the highest spade played. If no spade is played, the book is won by the highest card of the leading suit. Whoever played the highest card leads the next round.

When playing the game in person, it's possible for a player to mistakenly (or intentionally) play out of suit when they do indeed have the leading suit in hand. This is called "Reneging." If caught by the other team, the penalty is usually a forfeit of 3 books from the offending team to the opposing team for that round.*

When a team gets at least as many books as its bid, that team gets a score of 10 times its bid. So if you had a team bid of 5 and successfully won 5 books at the end of the round, you would score 50 points. If your team bid 5 but only won 4 books at the end of the round, you'd score -50 points for that round. Extraneous books called sandbags (also known as "overtricks" or "bags" for short) are worth one point each. So if your team bid 5 and ultimately won 7 books, you'd have 52 points for that round.

If a team scores 10 or more bags, 100 points is deducted from its score.* Any bags beyond ten are carried over to the next cycle of ten overtricks. So if a team reached twenty overtricks they would lose another 100 points and so on.

As an example, let's take a team that has a score of 436. Since bags are 1 point each, that would mean this team has accrued 6 bags (or maybe 16) over the course of the previous rounds. If they bid 4 and win 7 books they score 43, making their score 479 meaning they've now accrued 9 bags. If instead they won 8 books they would score 44, but lose 100 because they now have 10 bags. The result score would be 380 (436 + 44 - 100). If they instead won 9 books, they score 45 and lose 100, bringing their score to 291.

If a team is down by 100, your team can do a blind bid which means you bid at least 6 books without looking at your cards. The reward for winning your books will be 20 per book instead of 10 with no bags. Not winning at least 6 books will bring you down 10 points per bid as normal.

The team to reach 500 points first wins the game.* If both teams reach at least 500 points in a the same round, the team with the higher score wins.

The scoring might sound a little daunting at first but luckily, this is what Bookbag will take care of for you!

Card rankings

Sometimes people will play with Jokers which means you take out the 2 of clubs and 2 of hearts. These Jokers along with the remaining 2s will become the highest spades. The ranking of the highest ranking cards then become Big Joker, Little Joker, 2 of diamonds, 2 of spades, Ace of spades, etc. Sounds weird, I know.

Bidding

Even though bidding board requires you to bid at least 4 books as a team, this limit can be increased, decreased, or removed completely depending on your house rules.

There is also a concept of "nil" bidding. This means a person is saying they won't get any books throughout the whole round. If successful, your team is awarded 100 points. If the player bidding nil gets even one book, you lose 100 points. This is in addition to whatever your partner scores for the round. For example, if you successfully bid nil and your partner successfully bids and books 5, you would be awarded 150 points for the round. Say you accidentally get 1 book after bidding nil and your partner successfully gets 5. That would be -50 points for the round. If you're playing with bags you would count accordingly.

You might notice an option on the rules screen "First hand bids itself". This is a common rule that says the first round does not require bids from any player. Everyone plays the first round and gets 10 points for every book for their team.

Gameplay

When a team reneges, there is no benefit in them admitting to it. Therefore the offending team needs to be exposed by the opposing team of said offense. Sometimes by calling out the exact round of the offending play. If the opposing team can successfully call out the renege with whatever stipulations the players agree on, 3 books are given to the opposing team before score is taken. This means if the offending team was 3 books over their bid, they could break even for the round. Another variation is that the offending team loses all books for the round. If a team falsely accuses the other team of reneging, the offending team loses 3 books for the round although these books do not go to the other team.

Scoring

Some players do not play with bags. If you're playing to a score lower than 500, you can lower the bag limit as well. For example if you want to play to 250, you could have a 5 bag limit for -50 points.

The 500 point limit can be altered as the players see fit.