Spades
How to play
Spades is played by four players in two teams, and you and North, a computer partner, play against West and East. Each hand deals all 52 cards, 13 to each player, and the deal moves one seat to the left after every hand. Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, every player bids how many tricks they expect to take, from 1 to 13, or bids nil to promise no trick at all. The two bids of a team that are not nil are added together to make the team contract.
The player to the left of the dealer leads the first trick, and you must follow the suit that was led when you can. Spades are always trump, so any spade beats every card of another suit, and the highest spade or the highest card of the suit led wins. Spades cannot be led until a spade has been played on an earlier trick, unless the leader holds only spades. The winner of each trick leads the next one.
A team that takes at least its contract scores 10 points per trick bid plus 1 point for each extra trick, called a bag, and a team that falls short loses 10 points per trick bid. A nil bid scores 100 if that player takes no trick and loses 100 otherwise, and tricks taken by a nil bidder do not count for the partner but count as bags. Every time a team collects 10 bags it loses 100 points. The game ends after the hand in which a team reaches 500, the higher score wins, and another hand is played if both teams are level. The computer players bid by counting the tricks their aces, kings and long spades should win, play the cheapest winning card while the team still needs tricks and protect a partner who bid nil.
Read the full guide: SpadesControls
When it is your turn to bid, press one of the buttons from Nil to 13, and the table shows a rough count of the sure tricks in your hand. During play, click or tap a bright card to play it, while the cards you cannot play are dimmed. The Sort button changes the order of your hand and the Fast button shortens the pauses of the computer players. The score table lists the points of each hand and the bags carried by each team.