How to play Spades

The goal

You and North (your partner) play West and East. First team to the game score wins, 300 or 500 points as set in Settings.

The deal

Each seat gets 13 cards. The dealer moves one seat to the left each deal, and the seat after the dealer bids first and leads the first trick.

Bidding

Each seat bids how many tricks it expects to take, 1 to 13. Your team's contract is your bid plus your partner's.

A bid of nil means you expect to take no tricks at all. Blind nil, if it's on in Settings, is a nil bid before you look at your cards, open to a team that trails by 100 points or more.

Playing a trick

Follow suit if you can. Spades are trump and beat every other suit. The highest spade wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no spade was played.

Spades can't be led until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, unless you hold only spades. You can turn that off in Settings.

Scoring a deal

Make your contract: 10 points per trick bid, plus 1 for every extra trick (a bag). Fall short: lose 10 points per trick bid.

Nil: +100 if you take no tricks, or −100 if you take any. Blind nil is worth 200 either way.

Bags

Every bag adds up. Each time your team collects 10 bags, it loses 100 points and the count drops by 10.