Spades is a partnership game in two halves: first you look at your cards and predict how many tricks you will win, then you try to hit that number exactly. Missing your bid is punished, and so is wildly overshooting it. A game to 500 takes about 45 minutes.

What You Need

Players: Exactly 4, in two partnerships sitting across from each other.
Deck: One standard 52-card deck. Aces are high, 2s are low.
Extras: Pen and paper - the running score matters throughout.

Key Terms

Trick: One round where every player plays a single card. The best card wins all four.
Follow suit: Playing a card of the led suit. You must do this if you can.
Trump: A suit that beats every other suit. In Spades it is always spades.
Bid: The number of tricks you promise to win this hand.
Nil: A bid of zero, promising to win no tricks at all. Worth a big bonus, and a big penalty if you slip up.
Bag: A trick you win beyond your team's bid. Harmless in ones and twos, expensive in tens.

Setup

Sit so partners are opposite each other; you will play against the two people beside you.
Pick a dealer any way you like (a common method is that everyone draws a card and the highest deals).
Deal the whole deck clockwise, one card at a time, giving all four players 13 cards.

How to Play

Bidding

Starting to the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player says how many tricks they expect to win, from 0 (nil) to 13.
Your team's contract is simply your bid plus your partner's - you must win at least that many tricks between you.
Bids are made in turn, so later bidders get information from earlier ones. There is no passing.

Trick play

The player to the dealer's left leads any card except a spade.
Everyone else follows suit if they can. If you cannot follow suit, you may play anything, including a spade.
The highest spade played wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the led suit wins.
The winner leads the next trick.
Spades cannot be led until they have been "broken" - meaning someone has already played a spade on an earlier trick because they were void in the led suit. The exception is when spades are all you have left.

Scoring & Winning

Contract made: 10 points per trick you bid, plus 1 point per bag.
Contract missed: you lose 10 points per trick you bid, and the tricks you did win count for nothing.
Nil made: +100. Nil failed: -100. Your partner's bid is scored separately either way.
Bag penalty: every time your team accumulates 10 bags, you lose 100 points and 10 bags come off the count.
First team to 500 points wins. Some groups also end the game if a team drops to -200.

Example

Your team bid 6 and takes 7 tricks. You score 60 for the contract plus 1 for the extra bag, and that bag sits on your score sheet edging you toward the -100 penalty.

Variations

Blind nil: bid nil before looking at your hand for a 200-point swing, usually only allowed when trailing badly.
Jokers: add two jokers as the top two trumps and remove the 2♣ and 2♦.
Suicide: one partner on each team is required to bid nil every hand.

Tips for New Players

Count your near-certain winners first: aces, protected kings, and any spade above the jack.
Bidding one under your gut feeling is usually safer than one over, since bags cost far less than a missed contract.
If your partner bids nil, your job changes completely - lead low cards so they can shed high ones, and win tricks they might otherwise be forced to take.