Spades with your regular partner
Spades, the way your table keeps score.
Plain guides for people who already know which side of the table their partner sits on: the rules everybody argues about, how to play as a team without saying a word, and how a Spades tournament actually runs.
Score · no bids · to 300
| Hand | We | They |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 80 | 50 |
| 2 | 150 | 110 |
| 3 | 210 | 180 |
| 4 | 290 | 230 |
| 5 | 330 | 320 |
The guides
Six pages worth keeping by the card table.
Each one answers one question all the way through, so you can settle it and get back to the game.
Get the two of you on the same team, at the same table, without a group chat full of screenshots.
2Spades Without Bidding: The Race to 300Every book is 10 points and first to 300 wins. What changes when nobody bids.
3How Spades Tournaments WorkBrackets, rounds, partners and points, explained the way you would explain it at the table.
4Spades Rules Refresher: Breaking Spades, Following Suit, RenegingThe three rules every table argues about, settled.
5Spades Partner Strategy Without Table TalkYour partner reads every card you play. Make each one say something.
6Counting Spades: Keeping Track of the Trump SuitThirteen spades. Know where they went and you know who takes the last books.
House rules, written down
The simple game: partners, no bids, first to 300.
Plenty of tables skip bidding entirely. You play the cards, you count the books, and the books are the score. It is the version Spades Tourneys plays, and it is the version these guides keep coming back to.
- Always partners. Two teams of two, partners across from each other.
- No bidding. Every book your team takes is 10 points, so each hand gives out 130.
- First team to 300 wins. If both pass it on the same hand, the higher score wins.
- Follow suit when you can. Spades are always trump.
- No leading spades until they are broken, unless spades are all you have.
- No nil, no bags, no jokers.
Where to play
Bring your partner to Spades Tourneys.
Spades Tourneys is a partners-only Spades game for iPhone, Android and the web. Tourneys are real people only, and there is a game every half hour. Sign up together with a four-letter partner code and you stay a team for the whole tourney.