Spades Strategy: 10 Tips for Bidding, Bags and Nil

Good Spades strategy isn't about memorizing every card. It's about bidding honestly, helping your partner, and keeping an eye on the score. These ten habits will win you more hands, whether you play around the kitchen table or in our free online Spades game. If you need a refresher first, the Spades rules page covers everything from the deal to the final score.

1. Bid What You Can Count

Start with the tricks you're sure of: aces, kings with at least one other card of their suit, and long spades (one extra trick for each spade over four). Then adjust:

Don't bid high to impress, and don't bid low to play it safe. Being set costs you ten points a trick, and bags cost you 100 points every ten. The bid that matches your hand is almost always the right one.

2. Don't Overtake Your Partner

If your partner is already winning the trick, don't play a higher card just because you can. Play your lowest card and save your winner for a trick your team actually needs. Taking your partner's trick wastes a high card and often turns a sure trick into a bag or a lost trick later.

The same goes for trumping. If your partner's ace of clubs is winning and you're out of clubs, throw away a small card from another suit instead of a spade.

3. Signal Through Your Leads

Spades is played in silence, so your cards do the talking. When you lead a suit, your partner learns something:

Watch what your partner leads too. If North keeps leading diamonds, there's probably a good reason, such as a short suit you can help set up.

4. Create Voids So You Can Trump

A void is a suit you have no cards in. Once you're void, you can trump that suit with a small spade and take a trick your opponents thought was theirs. If you have a short suit, such as a single club or two diamonds, play those cards early. Each low spade in your hand turns into a trick once you have a void to use it with.

This is also why your hand is often worth more than it first looks. Three small spades and a singleton can easily be worth an extra trick.

5. Draw Trump When You're Strong

If you hold the ace and king of spades and plenty of length, think about drawing trump: once spades are broken, lead them and pull the opponents' spades out of their hands. After that, your high cards in the other suits are safe from being trumped.

Don't draw trump when you're short in spades or when your partner is the one who needs to trump. Leading spades then just helps the opponents.

6. Manage Your Bags

Once your team has made its contract, every extra trick is a bag. One or two bags a hand is fine, but they add up. When your team has six, seven or eight bags already, start playing to lose the extra tricks: duck under the winning card, discard high cards when you can't follow suit, and let the opponents win.

The flip side: if the opponents are close to ten bags, it can pay to give them a trick or two they didn't want.

In our game: the score sheet shows each team's bag count, so you always know how close you are to the 100-point penalty.

7. Know When to Bid Nil

A Nil bid is worth 100 points, so it's tempting. It's a good bet when your hand has:

Avoid Nil with an ace, a king with few low cards behind it, or four or more spades. Also think about the score: a failed Nil costs 100, so a risky Nil makes more sense when you're behind than when you're comfortably ahead.

8. Cover Your Partner's Nil

When your partner bids Nil, your job changes. You're trying to make your own bid and keep your partner from taking a trick.

Bid a little more than usual when your partner says Nil. You'll be taking extra tricks to protect them, and the 100-point Nil is worth more than a few bags.

In our game: when you bid Nil, North plays high cards to cover you. Tap Why? to see its reasoning.

9. Set the Opponents

When the opponents bid high, defending can be worth more than taking your own bags. If they need 8 tricks and you can hold them to 7, they lose 80 points instead of gaining 80. That's a 160-point swing.

10. Break an Opponent's Nil

When an opponent bids Nil, try to force them to win a trick. Lead low cards in suits where they might be holding a high card, so they have to play it. Don't play high cards in front of them; let your partner and the Nil bidder's partner fight over the trick. Late in the hand, a Nil bidder often has one or two dangerous cards left, and a well-timed low lead can catch them.

Breaking a Nil is a 100-point swing, but don't go so far that your own team gets set.

Practice Makes the Difference

The best way to build these habits is to play. In our game, use the Hint button when you're unsure, check Show All Hands after each hand, and use Replay This Deal to try the same cards a different way. Curious about the house rules your family plays? See Spades rule variations. And if you'd like another trick-taking game where every player is on their own, give Hearts a try.

Ready to try it? Play a free game of Spades with a computer partner against two computer players. No sign-up needed.

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