Spades online

Bid with your partner, spades always trump, and never lead one until they are broken.

Players: 4 players
Length: 30–45 min
Difficulty: Medium
Energy: Calm, on your own screen
On a video call: Works well
Type: Cards · Partners

About Spades

Play Spades online for free with 4 players. Bid with your partner, spades always trump, and never lead one until they are broken. Create a room, share the code, and play in a browser with no signup or download.

What playing it feels like

A hand of cards you hold close, played fast against a table that is watching your count.
Mostly quiet: the action happens on each player’s own screen.
Plays well on a video call — the talking happens on camera and the app does the rest.
One round and everyone has it.

Good for

Exactly 4 people
A proper evening rather than a filler
A video call, with everyone on their own screen

Maybe skip when

There are fewer than 4 of you
More than 4 of you want to play at once
You only have ten minutes

Spades is the four-player partnership trick game that America plays at the kitchen table, in college common rooms and on long weekends: you and the person opposite you bid how many tricks you will take between you, and then you have to take them. Spades are always trump, so a hand full of them is a promise and a single one is an insurance policy.

What makes it Spades rather than any other bidding game is the scoring. Make your contract and every extra trick is a bag — a point now, and a hundred-point penalty every time your side collects ten. Bid nil and you are promising to take nothing at all, for a hundred points either way. A good partnership is two people who know when to sandbag and when to sink the other side.

PartyDen deals, keeps spades from being led until one has been played, refuses a card that does not follow suit, and does all the bag arithmetic — the part of Spades that ends friendships. Partners sit opposite, the bids are on every seat, and the first side to the target wins.

How to play Spades

1Create a room and share the code. Spades is four players in two partnerships; partners sit opposite each other.
2Everyone is dealt 13 cards. From the dealer’s left, each player bids the tricks they will take, 0 to 13. A bid of 0 is Nil: you promise to take none at all.
3Your side’s contract is your two bids added up (nil counts as nothing). The player after the dealer leads. Follow suit if you can, else play anything. Spades are trump.
4You may not lead a spade until one has been played to a trick — unless spades are all you have left.
5Make your contract and score 10 a trick of it, plus 1 for every extra trick (a bag). Fall short and lose 10 a trick. Every tenth bag costs your side 100.
6A nil made is worth 100; a nil broken loses 100. The first side to the target — 200, 300 or 500, the host’s choice — wins.

Spades FAQ

How many people play Spades?

Four, in two partnerships of two. Partners sit opposite, so play goes you, an opponent, your partner, the other opponent.

What does "spades broken" mean?

Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played to a trick — usually by someone who could not follow suit. The board shows whether spades are broken yet, and the app will not let you lead one before they are (unless you hold nothing else).

What is a bag in Spades?

A trick your side takes beyond its contract. Each one scores a point, but the bags add up across hands, and every tenth one costs your side 100 points — which is why taking extra tricks is not always good.

How does a Nil bid work?

You bid zero and try to take no tricks at all while your partner plays their own bid. Take none and your side scores 100; take even one and it loses 100. The nil bidder’s tricks never count towards the partner’s contract.

Is there blind nil?

Not in this version. Blind nil, and the house rule where a side at minus 200 loses outright, vary so much from table to table that the app plays the standard game and keeps it simple.

How is Spades different from Call Break?

They are cousins: spades are trump in both. Call Break is everyone for themselves and forces you to beat the winning card if you can; Spades is played in partnerships, has no must-beat rule, and scores bags and nil.