varaq
Learn Spades, step by step
Varaq teaches Spades at a real table, one idea at a time. Each step sets up a hand, asks you to make one move, and shows you why it works; Show me plays it for you if you get stuck. The main stages end in a checkpoint, and a strategy stage is offered once you know the rules. The lessons are free, need no account, and run in English and Persian.
Stage 1: First touch
4 steps, then a checkpoint.
- Your first card: Four players get 13 cards each. Play goes clockwise, one card each, and those four cards make a book, also called a trick.
- What a book is: Everything in Spades is counted in books: bids, scores and bags. Read how one works before you win your first.
- Win a book: Ray led the K♦, so diamonds is the suit led. The highest diamond takes the book, and whoever takes it leads the next one.
- Your partner: Jordan, across the table, is your partner; Ray and Dee are the other team. Books either of you take count for your team, so a high card played over Jordan’s winner is wasted.
- Checkpoint: the last three books: You lead with three cards left. Play the cards nobody can beat first; when the others run out of a suit, even a low card wins.
Stage 2: The rules
5 steps, then a checkpoint.
- Follow suit: If you hold the suit led, you must play it. Playing another suit while you hold it is a reneg, and this table won’t allow it.
- Cut with a spade: Spades are always trump. With none of the suit led you may play any card, and a spade beats every card of the other suits: that is cutting.
- Breaking spades: Spades can’t be led until they are broken, that is, until any spade has been played.
- Only spades left: Nobody has played a spade, so spades aren’t broken. But you hold nothing else, and then a spade may be led.
- The end of a hand: A hand is 13 books, one for each card you hold. When the last book is played, both teams score, and the player on the dealer’s left deals the next hand.
- Checkpoint: three books by the rules: Three books left. Ray led the K♦ and you have no diamonds, so you may cut. Ray still holds the J♠: cut with your lowest spade and keep the Q♠, the top spade left, to lead.
Stage 3: Scoring
14 steps, then a checkpoint.
- Read your hand and bid: Before play, everyone bids the books they expect to take, starting at the dealer’s left. Partners’ bids add up to the team’s bid. Aces and high spades are the surest books.
- Kings and queens need guards: A King usually wins once the Ace is gone if it has one smaller card to play first; a Queen needs two. A bare King or Queen is often caught.
- Long spades and a void: Spades beyond four become winners as the other hands run out. A void, or a single card, lets a spare spade cut that suit.
- Read the table total: There are 13 books. A table total over 13 means someone will be set; well under 13 means bags are coming, so bid close to what you take.
- Predict the score: You bid 4 and Jordan 3, so your team needs 7 books. You have 5 with two to play. Making the bid scores 10 for each book bid.
- Bags: Every book over your bid is an overtrick, called a bag. Each bag adds 1 point to your score.
- Set them: A team that takes fewer books than it bid is set: it loses 10 for each book bid. Ray and Dee bid 8 and have 7, with two books left.
- The bag penalty: Bags carry over from hand to hand. When a team’s bags reach 10, it loses 100 points and the count drops by 10. Your team has made its bid of 5 and carries 9 bags.
- What Nil is: Before you bid Nil, learn what it promises and how it scores. The next step lets you bid one.
- Nil: A bid of 0 is Nil: you promise to take no books. Make it and your team scores 100; take even one and it loses 100.
- Cover your partner’s Nil: Jordan bid Nil and you bid 4. When Jordan’s card is winning a book, take it yourself so the Nil holds.
- A broken Nil: A Nil bidder’s books never count toward the partner’s bid; each one is a bag. You bid Nil, and Jordan bid 4 and has 3 books.
- Boston: Taking all 13 books is a Boston. You and Jordan bid 13 and have all 11 books so far. Here it scores like any made bid: 10 a book.
- Win the match: A match ends when a team has 500 after a hand; the higher score wins, and a tie plays another hand. You lead 460 to 430. You bid 4 and have 3; Ray and Dee bid 9 and have 8.
- Checkpoint: score the hand: You bid 4 and have 1 book; Jordan bid Nil and has none. Ray led the K♦ and you have no diamonds. Take all three books, and both your bid and Jordan’s Nil score.
Stage 4: Tactics
7 steps, then a checkpoint. Offered once the earlier stages are done; it never blocks finishing.
- Count what’s left: Count the high cards and the spades as they are played. Once every higher card of a suit has fallen and no other player can cut it with a spade, your card is sure to win a book, so lead it before you lose the lead.
- Lead to your partner: Lead to your partner’s strength. A partner with no cards of a suit can cut it with a spade, so lead that suit while they still hold one. You learn your partner is out of a suit when they cut it or throw another suit on it.
- Cut when it counts: Cut when a book matters and nothing else in your hand can win it: when it makes your team’s bid or sets the other team. Cut with a spade high enough that no player still to play can beat it.
- Save your spade: No. A spade is worth most when it wins a book your team would otherwise lose. When your partner is already winning and you cannot follow suit, throw your lowest card and keep the spade for later.
- Play low under your partner: Play low. When your partner is already winning the book, play your lowest card of the suit. Your high card then wins a book of its own later, instead of landing on your partner’s.
- Lead for a Nil partner: A Nil scores 100 only if your partner takes no book. Lead your highest cards in the suits your partner may still hold, so their high cards fall safely under yours, and overtake their card whenever it is winning a book.
- Set them, even for a bag: Usually, yes. Once your bid is made, an extra book is only a bag: 1 point now, and 100 off for every ten. Setting the other team costs them 10 points for every book they bid, so take the book that sets them.
- Checkpoint: play with your partner: This hand uses what you learned: when your partner is already winning, play your lowest card and keep your high cards to win books your team would otherwise lose.
Stage 5: Variations
6 steps, then a checkpoint. Offered once the earlier stages are done; it never blocks finishing.
- At other tables: Spades has many house rules. Varaq offers the six most common as table options, taught next; ask about these others before you play somewhere new.
- Short game: A short game ends at 300 points instead of 500. Everything else plays the same. You lead 262 to 238.
- Nil off: Some tables play without Nil. Then every bid is from 1 to 13, so a hand with no sure book still bids 1.
- Blind nil: On tables that allow it, a team trailing by 100 or more may bid Nil before looking at its cards, for 200 either way. You trailed 120 to 260 and bid it blind.
- No bag penalty: Without the bag penalty, each bag is still worth 1 point, but bags only add up: 10 of them never cost 100. Your team has 12 bags and has made its bid of 5.
- 2♣ leads: On some tables the 2♣ opens every hand instead of the player on the dealer’s left. Whoever holds it leads it to the first book.
- Checkpoint: Big Joker, Little Joker: Big Joker, Little Joker adds two jokers as the top spades: the Big Joker, then the Little Joker, then the 2♠, then the A♠. The 2♣ and 2♥ leave the deck, so 52 cards remain.
Stage 6: Fluent
One checkpoint. Offered once the earlier stages are done; it never blocks finishing.
- Checkpoint: Play a guided match: A whole match brings every stage together: bid, play, count and score to the target. The coach names only real mistakes and good plays, one sentence each.
Last updated: