The Game of Spades

Usually four people, divided into two teams, play the card game of Spades. However, there are many variations which allow more players to be part of the game. The game makes use of a deck of cards consisting of 52 cards. The Jokers are not used in the game. The card with the highest value is Ace followed by the King and so on and so forth. The card with the lowest value is 2 or the deuce.

One of the players has to deal the card. So, using a coin toss, drawing of a card or randomly one person is selected to become the dealer. The dealer then shuffles the cards thoroughly. The pack of cards can be cut, though it is not a requirement. Then one by one the cards are dealt to all the four players in turn until the pack is finished.

After the cards are dealt, the players then look at their set of cards and try to figure out how many tricks they have the ability to take. The player who is seated on to the left of the dealer first has to declare his or her bids. This is then jotted down. Each team has to take the total number of bids that both players have declared.

There is something also known as Nil bid. In this case, the player decides that he will take zero tricks because he or she has an extremely weak hand and does not foresee taking any tricks. Even a Blind Nil is allowed in Spades, but this has to be declared before you look at your cards. Also, if a team wants to take Blind Nil, it must be at least a hundred points behind. If the team makes the Blind Nil, it will win 200 points, but if it fails, it will lose 200 points. So, this can be quite a challenge for the team as the stakes are very high.

The player who is sitting to the left of the dealer starts the game. This player throws a card onto the table and all others must continue throwing the same suit. In case a player does not have the same suit as what is on the table, he or she can play any other suit that they have in their hand. In Spades, this is referred to as sloughing.

Once the round is over, the winner is decided. The player who has the highest card of the suit that is thrown is the winner unless some other player has trumped the card using a Spades suit. In this case, the person who has trumped is the winner. In case all the cards are Spades, then the player with the highest Spade is the winner. The winner takes the winning trick and stacks it in front of him or her so that at the end it is easy to count.

The player who won the trick then becomes the lead player, and he or she then has to throw one card on the table and the process described above continues. The game play continues until all the cards that were dealt have been played.

When it comes to counting of points in Spades, the tricks that a team has taken is compared to the team's bid. A team gets 10 points for every trick that it bid and subsequently took and one point for every trick it took but did not bid before starting the game. For instance, if a team bid 6 tricks, but end up with 7, the team will get 60 points for the 6 tricks plus one point for the additional bid, making the total score 61.

If a team does not make its total number of tricks, it will receive penalty points. These penalty points are usually 10 times the bid. For instance, if the team bid for 7 tricks but managed to garner just 6, then it will receive a penalty of 70 points. So 70 points will be deducted from the team’s score.

Usually Spades is played for a set number of points, which can be 500 points or 1000 points. The idea is for the team to reach this goal as soon as possible, and the team that does is the winner of the game. In case both teams manage to get to 500 points in the same hand, then the team with the higher score is the winner.

Just like any other card game, even Spades has quite a few variations that people use for games being played among friends or family. Some clubs or online gaming sites may have their own set of rules. However, the basic game play of Spades is the one described above.