We've summed up the most important strategic points below, but if you really want to improve your game, we suggest reading through our Hearts game strategy guide as well. The second is to carefully choose which cards to play in tricks to prevent taking penalty points. The first one is to try to pass undesirable cards so you won't be stuck with them. There are two main goals when it comes to playing strategically. The player with the lowest score when the game ends wins. When a player reaches 100 points, the game ends. When a Hearts card or Queen of Spades is first played, it's known as "Breaking hearts", and after that, Hearts can be led. Players must follow suit, but if they can't, they can play any card. The objective of the game is to avoid taking point cards, where a suit of Hearts card is worth 1 point, and the Queen of Spades is worth 13 points.Īt the start of the game, each player is dealt 13 cards, and on each round, players pass 3 cards to another player.
The player with the lowest score wins the game. It's a trick-avoidance game played by 4 players. It even includes an interactive tutorial that'll take you through a game while explaining the rules to you. If you haven't played the game before, we suggest having a look at our thorough guide on how to play Hearts. Once the score is tallied after each hand, another deal begins.If you're in need of a refresher on the rules, we've summed them up below. Once 10 sandbags are reached, the team looses 100 points and starts over with 0 sandbags again. When either of these are not met, the team will get -100 and -200 points respectively. If a nil is bid and met, the team gets an additional 100 points. If a bid is not met, each trick in the bid is worth -10 points. If the bid for a team is met, each trick counts 10 points, with any additional tricks (sandbags) worth 1 point.
Once the full hand has been played, the game is scored. Spades cannot lead a trick until they have been broken in another trick or if that is the only suit the lead player has left in their hand. The winner of the trick leads the next trick. If a trick contains a spade, the highest spade wins. If a trick is played without a spade, the highest lead suit card takes the trick. Moving clockwise, each player plays a card to follow suit, unless they do not have the suit, in which they can play any card in their hand. The Spades game begins gameplay with the player to the left of the dealer, who can play any card other than a Spade. The payout will be higher if you achieve it, but the loss even greater if you don't - so bid this at your own risk! Teams must reach the total number of tricks they have bid together in order to get a positive score. If you bid a Blind Nil, you must bid a 0 without seeing your cards. The table then enters into the bidding phase where they estimate the number of tricks they can take with the hand they have been dealt. Spades is a game of trumps, where all spades are the best cards in the game and will beat all other suits.Įach hand begins with all 52 cards being dealt to the players. The version of 24/7 Spades is the most popular and is played with four Spades players in a team format, where players across the table are considered teammates.
Spades is played with a basic set of 52 cards and card value ranks from 2, the lowest, to Ace, the highest. Spades is a casual card game developed in the 1930's in the USA.