Spades Online - Play Spades Card Game & Win Cash

Spades is a classic trick-taking 4-player card game that has captured the hearts of countless players around the world. With its origins dating back to the 1930s in the United States, Spades has stood the test of time and continues to be enjoyed by people of all ages and backgrounds. The game was derived from the Whist family of card games such as Hearts, Bridge, and Oh Hell. Spades is also closely related to other trick-taking card games like Euchre and Teen Do Paanch.

The Spades game is played with a standard deck of 52 cards and involves teamwork, strategy, and a touch of calculated risk. The objective is to collect points by winning tricks. The game gets its name from the highest-ranking suit, Spades, which is the trump suit of this game. Players bid on the number of tricks they believe they can win, with accurate predictions resulting in points and incorrect bids leading to penalties.

Learn how to play the Spades Online Game on MPL below.

What is a Spades Card?

A spade card is one of the suits included in a standard French deck of playing cards. Also known as Pique or Pik, the spade card is an upside-down black heart with a stalk at the base.

The spade card holds prime importance in this card game. Unlike games such as Bridge, Euchre, Teen Do Panch, and Hearts, the trump in this game is fixed -all the spade cards in the deck are the trump cards that rank higher than other cards.

Note: While a spade card (trump) can beat all the cards of other suits, a spade card with a higher rank can also beat a spade card with a lower rank in the game. For instance, a K♠ can beat a 10♠ at any time.

What is Spades Game?

Spades is a trick-taking game in which Spades in the trump - all the cards of Spade suit are trump cards. The game is mostly played between four players in a team of two players each or individually. However, the game also has two-player, three-player, and six-player versions. In this game, the players bid a number of winnable tricks and try to win at least that number of tricks through several rounds of the game.

How To Play Spades Online?

Objective

The main objective for each player is to win at least the number of tricks bid at the beginning of the game. The first player to reach 250 or 500 points (depending on the game) wins the game.

Players and Cards

Spades is usually played between four players, with the players either playing solo or in a team. However, even two or three players can play the spades card game. On MPL, the game is played between four players, with each player playing individually.

The game uses a standard deck of 52 cards. The rank of cards from high to low is A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

The Deal

The first dealer in the game is chosen randomly from the players, after which the turn to deals rotates clockwise. The dealer shuffles the cards and then deals one card at a time to each player in a clockwise direction until all cards have been dealt. Each player receives 13 cards.

How to Bid?

Winning the game depends a lot on how many tricks a player bids in the game. After the dealer deals the cards, the player at the dealer's left starts the bid. The players arrange their cards according to sets and assess the high-ranking cards in hand. Based on the strength of their hand, the players decide how many tricks they can win and then bid on that number of tricks.

As per the standard rules of the game, each player must bid at least one trick. However, in partnership, the bids by the team partners are added together. There's only one bidding round and the players are not allowed to pass. Bidding also has two common variants known as bidding nil and bidding blind.

Bidding Nil

When a partnership doesn’t bid a single trick, it is a bid of zero or nil. If the partners are successful at making zero tricks, their partnership earns 100 bonus points. However, if the partners win one or more tricks, the partnership gets a 100-point penalty.

If a player in the partnership bids Nil, but the other player bids a number, then the partner can still win the number of tricks bid.

Bidding Blind

When a player makes a bid without looking at his cards, it is called a blind bid or double nil. The player can look at his cards after bidding blind and then exchange three cards with the partner. If the player who bid blind is successful, the partnership gets 200 bonus points, and if the player fails, the partnership gets 200 penalty points.

Gameplay

Each player is dealt 13 cards until the entire deck has been distributed. The players arrange their cards and start the bidding process. Each player bids a number of tricks they can win in the round, with a minimum of one trick. The player on the dealer’s left plays the first card, and other players follow suit.

The player who has the highest-value card wins the trick. If a trick contains a Spade card, the highest Spade played wins the trick. If no player plays a Spade, the highest card of the suit led, wins the trick. The round continues until the players have played all the cards in hand, and the player with the highest score wins the game.

Breaking Spades

Spades are broken when a player cannot follow suit and chooses to play a Spade. In such instances, a player can choose to play spades or any card of another suit. Usually, the first trick cannot be led by a Spade. However, if a player plays the first Spade, it is called "Breaking Spades". A player can lead with a Spade card until:

Another player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit), or

The player has nothing else left in hand other than Spades

Scoring

When a player wins an equal number of tricks as a bid at the start of the game, it is called making the contract. A player scores 10 points for every trick won and makes the contract. If the player also wins more tricks than the contract, that is, the player wins bags, and they score one point for every extra trick won.

For instance, if a player bids 5 tricks and wins 5 tricks during all the rounds of the game, that player scores 5*10 = 50 points.

Similarly, if a player bid 5 tricks but wins 8 tricks during all the rounds of the game, that player will score (5*10) + (3*1) = 53 points.

Other Examples:

Player 1 bid 5 tricks and won 7 tricks. He will score 52 points (50 for the tricks bid, plus 2 for the extras, which are known as "bags.").

Player 2 bid 3 tricks and won only 2 tricks. He will receive a score of -30.

Player 3 bid 0 tricks and won 1 trick. He will receive a score of -100.

Player 4 bid blind 1 and won 0 tricks. He will receive a score of -10.

What is Sandbagging in Spades?

In a trick-taking game of spades, tricks are the number of rounds where every player plays a card. The tricks are also sometimes referred to as Books. A player with the highest card in a round wins one trick. The players must win at least the number of tricks bid at the start of the game. For instance, a player bid 4 tricks at the beginning of the game and was able to win four rounds during the play, the player is said to have won four tricks or books.

Any extra tricks won by a player above the number bid at the start are called Bags. Any tricks the team wins over the total bid is also called a bag. Winning each bag adds 1 extra point to the score. However, if a player wins 10 or more bags, that player loses 100 points, and the bag count also resets. Any bags beyond ten are carried over to the next cycle of ten overtricks - that is, if they are reached. This is called the Sanbagging rule.

Example: Suppose Player 1, whose score is 337, bids 5 tricks, and he has 7 bags carried over from the previous rounds.

If he wins 7 tricks, he scores 52, taking his score to 389 and bags to 9.

If he wins 8 tricks, he scores 53, but loses 100 because he now has 10 bags, and his score becomes 290 (337 + 53 - 100).

If he wins 9 tricks, he scores 54 and loses 100, bringing his score to 291 (337 + 54 - 100) and bags to 1.

Winning

To win the spades card game, a partnership must be the first to reach 500 points. When playing as an individual player, the first player to reach 250 points wins the game.

Spades Game Rules

The fundamental rules for playing Spades are as follows:

Spades are always the trump suit.

Each player must bid a number of tricks that they can win (a minimum of one trick) during the play.

The ranking of the cards in ascending order from the lowest to the highest card is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A.

The player to the dealer’s left begins the trick, followed by others in a clockwise direction.

Each player must play a card following the suit. If a player doesn’t have a card of the same suit, they can use a trump or play a random card.

The trick is won by playing the highest value card if no trump is played. If one or more trump/s is/are played, the higher value trump card wins the trick.

While these are the game's essential rules, there are more rules related to bidding, play, and scoring, which players learn while playing the game.

How to Play Spades with Joker Card?

Spades with jokers is also played between two to four players using a standard 52-card deck. Apart from these cards, two jokers are also added to the deck – The Big Joker and Little Joker or the Full-Color Joker and the One Color Joker. Spades are always the trump in this game as well. While the gameplay is similar to the original card game, the only difference lies in the use of jokers. The trump suit or the spade suit also includes the two jokers – the big joker and the little joker. The big joker outranks the little joker while the little joker outranks the ace of spades.