Clicking it will give you all the remaining tricks. If it is guaranteed that your hand will win all remaining tricks, you will be presented with a TRAM button. This is known as "trumping" and the Spades are considered a "trump" suit. However, if a Spade is played on the trick, then the highest Spade card will win the trick instead. Normally the highest card with the same suit as the lead card wins the trick. From this point on players can lead Spades. The first time a Spade card is played is known as "breaking spad es". If they do not have a card with that suit, they may play any card (except on the first trick, in which you may not play Spades). Players must play a card with the same suit as the lead card. Whichever player played the highest card with the same suit as the lead card, takes the cards. The other players then each play a card in clockwise order until all 4 players have played a card. The start player starts the trick by playing any card from their hand, except Spades. If they take 1 or more tricks, they fail and their team will receive a penalty. If they succeed in not taking any tricks, their team scores a bonus. This player is saying that they will not take any tricks this hand. This is the number of tricks the team must take as a whole to avoid receiving negative points.Ī bid of 0 tricks is known as a "nil" bid. Players may bid from 0 (nil) to 13 tricks.Įach team adds together the bids of each partner. They are bidding how many "tricks" they think they can take. Starting with the start player and proceeding clockwise around the table, each player places a bid. The player to the dealer's left goes first. DealĪ random player is chosen to be the dealer.Įach player is dealt a hand of 13 cards from a standard deck of 52 cards. The objective is to be the first team to reach 500 points.
There are two teams of two, with partners sitting across from each other.Ĭards are ranked from Ace (high) down to 2 (low). Spades is a 4 player "trick taking" game.