Spades is America’s favorite trick-taking game: every hand starts with a promise — how many tricks you’ll win — and the whole game is about keeping your word. Spades are always trump, and a bold nil bid can swing everything.
Here you partner with a dependable computer teammate against two rivals, in the classic 2v2 format.
How to Play Spades by Yourself
- Each of four players receives 13 cards; you and the player across are partners.
- Everyone bids the number of tricks they expect to win.
- Follow suit if possible; the highest card of the led suit wins unless a spade trumps it.
- Spades cannot lead until they’ve been played on another suit (or you have only spades).
- Make your team’s combined bid to score it ×10; extra tricks earn 1 bag each.
- First team to 500 points wins.
Rules of Spades
- Standard 52-card deck; spades are permanent trump.
- A bid of “nil” means zero tricks — huge bonus if kept, huge penalty if broken.
- Failing your combined bid loses 10 points per bid trick.
- Collecting 10 bags (overtricks) costs a 100-point penalty.
- Games play to 500 points, or a fixed number of hands.
Winning Strategies for Spades
- Count your sure tricks — aces, protected kings, long spades — and bid honestly.
- Protect a partner’s nil ruthlessly: overtake their high cards whenever you can.
- Lead low from long side suits early to develop your spades quietly.
- Track spades played; the moment trumps are exhausted, your aces become unstoppable.
- Bags are a slow poison — sometimes ducking a winnable trick is the right play.
How Spades scoring works: books, bags and nil
A trick in Spades is usually called a book, and your bid is a promise about how many of them you and your partner will take between you. Make the combined bid and you score ten points per book bid. Miss it — even by one — and you lose ten points per book bid, which means a team that bid eight and took seven does not score 70, it scores minus 80. That asymmetry is the engine of the whole game.
Every book you take beyond your bid is a bag, worth exactly one point. Bags look like free money and are anything but: accumulate ten across the game and you take a 100-point penalty and your bag counter resets. A team that overbids slightly every hand will quietly hand back a full round of scoring, which is why experienced players will deliberately duck a trick they could easily win.
Nil is the bid that decides most close games. You promise to take zero books all hand, for +100 if you keep it and −100 if a single trick lands on you. Your partner still bids normally and is expected to spend the hand covering you — overtaking your dangerous cards, drawing out the trumps that would strand you. Many house rules add a blind nil — bid before you look at your hand, for double the stakes — though this version sticks to the standard nil.
Bidding: counting your tricks before you play one
Good Spades is decided before a single card is played. Start with your certainties: every ace is close to a book, and a king is one if you hold at least one other card in that suit to protect it. A bare king will often fall to the ace on the first lead.
Then count your spades, because they are permanent trump and behave differently. Any spade above the jack is generally a book. Beyond that, length itself is worth something: with five or more spades you will still hold trumps after everyone else has run out, at which point your small spades start winning tricks that no side-suit card ever could. A void in a side suit is worth roughly one extra book for the same reason — you can trump the first time that suit is led.
The common beginner error is bidding what you hope for rather than what you hold. Because missing your bid is punished at the same rate that making it is rewarded, a conservative bid that you make is almost always worth more than an ambitious one you miss. Bid four, take five, and you score 41. Bid five, take four, and you score minus 50.
Playing Spades against the computer, solo
Spades needs four players and two teams, which is a lot of coordination for a game you feel like playing for ten minutes. In this version you are seated with a computer partner against two computer opponents in the standard 2v2 format, so the partnership dynamic — the part that makes Spades Spades — is fully intact.
Your partner bids for itself, covers your nil when you call one, and will overtake your cards when the situation calls for it, so protecting a partner's nil works in both directions. The opponents count the spades that have been played and will punish a team that bleeds bags.
The game runs in the browser on any device, free, with no download and no account. There is no wagering and no casino content — just the card game, played to 500 points.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play Spades with one player?
Yes — this version seats you with a computer partner against two computer opponents, so full four-player Spades works perfectly solo.
What does bidding nil mean?
You promise to take zero tricks all hand. Success typically scores +100; taking even one trick costs −100. It is the boldest play in Spades.
What are bags in Spades?
Overtricks beyond your bid. Each is worth 1 point, but collect ten and you lose 100 — sandbagging on purpose is part of the strategy.
Can spades be led at any time?
Not until they are “broken” by someone trumping another suit, or when the leader holds nothing but spades.
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