Overview
Spades is a card game meant for four players in two teams. The game is played using a standard deck of cards (52 cards, no jokers). In each suit, the cards are ranked: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 in descending order. Spades are always trump. This implementation of the game allows for one to four players to play, while untaken player positions are played by the CPU players. The CPU players monitors the game at all times. Thus, players can join and leave the game at any given time without actually disturbing the game play.

Object of the Game
Teams bid a contract and then attempt to take enough tricks to fulfill that contract.

Bidding
There are thirteen possible tricks to win. Each player in turn bids the number of tricks
(s)he expects to win. His or her bid, plus the teammate's bid, make up the contract of the team.

The sum of all players' bids does not have to equal thirteen tricks, while the accumulated bid of one team can never exceed thirteen.

A player may chose to bid Nil, indicating the intention to win no tricks. Tricks taken by a player, who has bid Nil, does not count towards the contract of the team.

If the score of one team is at least 100 points lower than that of the opponent team, one player of that team may bid Blind Nil and exchange exactly two cards with his or her teammate.

Playing
Players take turn in taking the first lead of each hand and may lead any suit except Spades. Spades cannot be led until they have been broken by a Spade discarded on a previous trick (unless that player has only Spades left in his/her hand to lead). Players must follow suit if possible. A trick is won by the highest trump card played. If no trump is played, the highest card of the led suit wins the trick. The following trick is led by the player taking the previous trick.

Scoring
The object of the teammates is to fulfill their contract. If one teammate has bid Nil or Blind Nil, the teammate's contracts are scored separately, meaning that the individual scores don't influence each other. After being calculated individually, the scores are combined to make up the team score of the hand.

Tricks count 10 points each for teams making their contract. If the contract was not made, tricks in the contract count 10 points each against due to being set. Clearly this means that negative scores are possible. Tricks won in excess of the contract count 1 point each. But furthermore these tricks reward the team with a so-called "sandbag". The sandbagging rule dictates that a team that gathers 10 or more sandbags over several hands receives a penalty of 100 points.

A bid of Nil scores 50 points if made and loses 50 points if set. Blind Nil is worth 100 points if made, and penalized 100 points if set.

Winning the game
The winning team is the first team to exceed a total score of 500 points. If both sides exceed 500 points on the same hand, the side with the higher total score is the winning team. If both teams exceed 500 points at in the same hand and have the exact same score, the game continues until a distinct winning team can be declared.

The controls
At any time during the game the players can activate the controls described below (and shown in the screen shot to the right):

• Status
• Last Trick
• Chat
• Scoreboard

Status
The status field contains information on the current situation, e.g. who starts this round, what did the players bid, who took the trick and so on.

Last Trick
The last trick field displays the last trick at any given time.

Chat
The Chat field contains user chat messages and certain system messages not directly related to the ongoing game.

Scoreboard
The scoreboard shows the score development. For each hand the following information is displayed per team:

• The bid of the individual players (e.g. 4/2, meaning that the teammates have bid 4 and 2 respectively). 0 means a Nil bid, and B0 means a Blind Nil bid.
• The accumulated number of sandbags (possible values are 0-9).
• The accumulated team score.

Other features
The Rules button shows this page in a new browser window.

The Exit button exits the game immediately.