Why a garden table?

Spades needs four players in two teams, and on a phone there is usually nobody sitting opposite you. So this table is out in the garden and the other three seats belong to garden animals.

Bunny sits across from you as your partner. When Bunny bids, it tells you how it counted, for example “I have 3 likely tricks: 2 aces and the king of spades.” That is how most people learn to bid, by hearing someone else count out loud. The cards and rules are the usual American ones, so what you learn here works at a real table.

A bit of real Spades history

Spades comes from the whist family of card games, where players win tricks by playing the highest card. It is a close cousin of bridge, but simpler. Spades are always trumps, and each player makes one bid instead of the long auction bridge players have.

It is an American game, and a young one. The bridge writer George Coffin traced it to Cincinnati, Ohio, where it seems to have started some time between 1937 and 1939. From there it spread to other cities in the region and into the army. American soldiers played it a great deal during the Second World War, because a game could be stopped at any moment and picked up again later. After the war it became popular with college students, many of them veterans studying on the GI Bill.

Spades is still mainly played in the United States. The card game site Pagat notes that it is not well known in other countries, except in a few places where American troops were stationed, such as parts of Germany.

How to play Spades

• Four players, two teams. You and Bunny sit opposite each other and play against the two animals at the sides.
• Everyone gets 13 cards and bids the number of tricks they expect to take. A bid of nil means none at all. Your bid and Bunny’s bid add up to your side’s target.
• The player after the dealer leads first. Everyone follows the suit that was led if they can. If you can’t, you may play any card, and a spade beats every other suit.
• Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played on another suit, unless they hold only spades.
• Make your target and score 10 points for each trick you bid, plus 1 for each extra trick. Those extra tricks are called bags. Miss the target and you lose 10 points for each trick you bid.
• Every 10 bags your side collects costs 100 points.
• A nil bid scores 100 if that player takes no tricks, and loses 100 if they take even one. A nil player’s tricks don’t count toward the partner’s bid, but they do count as bags.
• Blind nil is a nil bid made before you look at your cards. It is worth 200 either way, and you and your partner then swap 2 cards. It is off unless you switch it on, and only allowed when your side is 100 or more behind.
• The first side to 250 points wins, or 500 for a long game. A side that drops to −200 loses.

Tips for bidding and play

Count aces and kings first. An ace nearly always wins a trick. A king with a small card or two beside it usually does too.

Spades are tricks in waiting. The ace, king and queen of spades usually win. A long run of spades often wins at the end, when everyone else has run out.

A missing suit is a trick. If you hold no clubs, you can trump the first club that is led, as long as you still have a spade.

Bid nil with a hand full of small cards, and no high spades. If Bunny bids nil, play your high cards early so Bunny can slip low cards underneath them.

Mind the bags. Once your side has its target, every extra trick is a bag. Play low and let the other side win, unless you can still stop them making theirs.

Your turn

Bunny is already at the garden table at the top of this page. Start against the Snail and Caterpillar with the bid helper on, then work your way up to the Fox and Owl.