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Introduction
Spades card game first appeared in USA in 1930s. It was played by American GIs during and after the Second World War. Recently the Internet helped Spades gain popularity internationally.
Online Partnership Spades or Online Head-to-Head Spades?
Given the anonymous nature of the Internet, online partnership Spades can hardly be a serious game in online environment as it becomes extremely prone to player collusion. Even a single individual can get two separate identities, posing as 2 partners in online partnership Spades and consistently win against the opposing real partnership.
Two-player (or Head-to-Head H2H) online Spades that you can play on this site is completely collusion-proof -- it is an exciting card game of skill for serious players.
Rank of Cards
A standard pack of 52 cards is used. The cards in each suit, rank from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
The Deal
In head-to-head spades there is no deal per se. Instead, the deck is placed face-down in the middle and two players take turns to draw 13 cards each.
At your turn, you draw the top card by dragging it (or double-clicking it). Once you start drawing a card, it will open up for your eyes only.
You look at this open card and decide whether you want to keep it or discard it:
If you want to keep it you put it in your hand, and then the next card that you could have drawn is shown to you & discarded
If you decide not to keep the first card, you discard in the discard pile to the right and then draw and keep the next card (it will go into your hand automatically to increase game speed).
It will then be your opponent's turn to draw. This continues until all cards have been chosen and discarded. You then each have a hand of 13 cards.
The goal in spades is to be the first to score the agreed-upon number of points (default -- 300 points). Points are earned by winning tricks according to bids declared prior to playing.
Playing the Game
Non-dealer leads any card except a spade as the first trick. Opponent must follow suit if able; if unable to follow suit, opponent may play any card.
A trick that has a spade is won by the highest spade played; if no spade is played, the trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. The winner of each trick leads in the next trick. Spades may not be led until either some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit), or the leader had nothing except spades left in hand. Playing the first spade is referred to as "breaking" spades.
Scoring
Sandbagging rule:
Overtricks are often referred to as 'bags'.
When you create a table, you can select 'Sandbagging' rule -- it's a default option.
Sandbagging comes with the following 3 options:
-10 for each
-100 for 10
-50 for 5
With '-10 for each' sandbagging option for each bag taken, a penalty of 10 points is deducted from the score.
Example of sandbagging rule: Player Joe bids 5 tricks. If he wins 7 tricks, he'd score extra 52 points but also lose 20 because of 2 overtricks. Net increase in Joe's score: 32 points.
With '-100 for 10' sandbagging option 100 point penalty is applied when the number of overtricks (e.g., over several hands) reaches 10.
With '-50 for 5' sandbagging option 50 point penalty is applied when the number of overtricks (e.g., over several hands) reaches 5.
Points for tricks:
If a player does not make a bid, he/she loses 10 points for each trick bid.
If a bid of nil is successful, the nil bidder receives 100 points.
If a bid of nil fails, i.e, the bidder takes at least one trick - the bidder loses 100 points.
A player who reaches the agreed-upon number of points first wins the game. If both players reach an agreed-upon number of points in a single deal, a player with the higher score wins.
Strategy in Head-to-Head Spades
In Head-to-Head Spades you need to achieve two main objectives during the game:
(1) get tricks per your own bid
(2) set the opponent and/or give bags to opponent
In other words, once you get tricks per your own bid then you should strive to get opponent go over his/her bid so that opponent gets penalized for overtricks.
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