Spades is a partnership card game played with 4 players in two partnership. It’s played with a standard 52 card deck. Ace is high, 2 is low. The object of the game is to first reach 500 points. Partners sit across the table from each other. A dealer is randomly selected and then each player takes turn to be the dealer in a clockwise direction. In this game, you play against 3 robots, one being your partner while the other two are your opponents. To play the game,
On the Welcome page, you choose either a slow or quick mode of play and then click button Start for normal play. If you want to see cards of hands to learn the game, you click button SeeCards.
You are assigned as the dealer for the first hand. Each player is dealt 13 cards one at a time.
The player to the dealer’s left bids first and then continue clockwise. You before seeing your cards have an option to click button Double Nil to bid “Double Nil” which means you don’t expect to win any trick for the hand. If either you or your partner bid Double Nil, you and your partner can exchange 3 cards. If you don’t want to bid Double Nil, you see your cards by clicking button Bid+1 until you have the number of tricks you expect to win. A player can bid from 0 (Nil) to 13. There is only one round of bidding. It is legal for both partners to bid Nil or Double Nil. If both partners bid Double Nil, there is no card exchange.
The player to the dealer’s left then lead a card of any suit except spade. He/she can lead a spade when there are only spade suit cards in the hand or a spade card has been played. Play continues clockwise. Each player has to play a card in the same suit which was led. When a player runs out of card in the same suit he/she can play a spade or any other suit. Each trick is won by the player who played the highest rank of the suit led. However if spades are played the trick is won by the highest rank of spade.
The player who won a trick then set the trick face down in front of him. He/she then leads the next card which can be any suit except spade. A spade can only be led if it has been played before.
The play continues until each player runs out of cards.
Each trick won counts for 10 points if a partnership meets its bid. Tricks won above the bid are called “bags” counts for 1 point. If a partnership does not meet its bid, it scores 10 negative points for each trick it bid. The bags are accumulated in a game. When a partnership has 10 bags, it get 100 negative points. Any bags beyond 10 bags are carried over to the next cycle.A player who bids Nil and is successful in winning no trick, the partnership earns 100 point. If the player wins any trick, the partnership loses 100 points. A player who bids Double Nil and is successful in winning no trick, the partnership earns 200 point. If the player wins any trick, the partnership loses 200 points. The usual rule is that when a nil fails, the tricks won by the nil bidder do not count towards making the partner’s bid, but do count as bags for the team.
The game ends when a partnership reaches 500 points and has higher points than the other partnership win the game. When both partnerships has the same points, they play again until one has more points and become the winner.