Easy: the opponents will use a beginner strategy for bidding - 1 for each Ace and King of non-spade suits and 1 for every high spade (A, K, Q, J, and 10).Your teammate always uses the most advanced strategies, the difficulty level only affects the opponent players.This may enable you to win tricks cheaply - you may want to bid higher than you usually would. If an opponent bid Nil, they will avoid taking tricks at all costs.'Setting' the opponents - stopping them from reaching their bid - may be worth taking a bag or two.Don't bid Nil if your partner bid Nil - it is almost impossible for a team to avoid winning all 13 tricks.Don't bid Nil if you have obvious winning cards - especially Ace of spades.If your partner bid Nil you may need to sacrifice some of your best cards to save the Nil - bid a little lower than you usually would.If your team bid Nil, your highest priority should be to protect your team's Nil bid - it has the highest penalty if failed.Kings of non-spade suits will sometimes take tricks if the player has several cards of that suit. The best strategy of bidding for beginners is to bid 1 for each Ace of non-spade suits and 1 for every high spade (A, K, Q, J and 10).The team with the highest score that exceeds 500 points wins the entire game.The case in which a team wins all 13 tricks of a round is called a 'Boston'.Any tricks won over the bid are considered bags as usual. In our variation of the game, if a nil bid fails, the tricks won by the failed nil bidder count towards making the partner's bid.This is in addition to the points won or lost by the tricks made by the Nil bidder's partner. A successful Nil bid gives the Nil bidder's team 100 points and a failed Nil bid deducts 100 points from the team's score.A team that didn't win at least as many tricks as they bid, loses points equal to 10 times their bid.

Every time a team accumulates ten or more bags, 100 points are deducted from their score and any bags beyond ten are carried over to the next cycle of ten bags. Any additional tricks over the bid are called bags and are worth one point each.A team that won at least as many tricks as their combined bid gets a score equal to 10 times their bid.The player that wins a trick leads the next one. If no spades were played during a trick, the player that played the highest card of the leading suit wins the trick. If a spade was played during a trick, the player that played the highest spade wins the trick. If a player doesn't have a card of the leading suit, they can play a card of any suit, including spades.Īfter the first spade card is played, the spades are 'broken'.Ī player can lead spades only after the spades are broken unless all the cards they have left are spades. Each player must play a card of the same suit as the first player, if they have a card of this suit. The players play in turns, in a clockwise direction. The first player to bid begins the round and can play any card except a spade. If the Nil bidder takes at least one trick, the Nil bid fails.Īfter the bidding, the round begins. The team still needs to win the number of tricks Nil's partner bid on. There is an extra bonus for a successful Nil bid and a penalty for a failed Nil. A player that bids Nil declares they will not win any tricks during the round. The goal of the game is for each team to win the combined number of tricks they bid on. In the next rounds, the turn to bid first rotates clockwise. The first player to bid in the first round is chosen randomly. The playing step of each round consists of 13 turns (also called 'tricks').Īfter the cards are dealt, every player looks at their cards and announces the number of tricks they think they can win - this is called 'bidding'. Every round is divided into two steps: bidding and playing. In the game of spades, there are several rounds. This means any spade card beats any non-spade card of any rank. The highest card ranking is Ace and the lowest is 2. The second team consists of the two other computer bots (blue otter and red fox). You (brown monkey) and your computer-bot partner (yellow bird) are one team. Each player is partnered with the player sitting opposite of them.

Spades is a trick-taking game for four players.

Free spade game