History
Spades is a twentieth-century American card game played with a number of variations around the United States.
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Basic info
Though it may be played with 2, 3, 4, or 6 players, the most common version of spades is the four-player game played at Yahoo!, described here, in which players are divided into two partnerships. Partners sit across from each other.
The first team to 500 points wins. If both reach 500 on the same deal, the team with the higher score wins.
Game play
All 52 cards are dealt out.
Each partnership bids the number of tricks they expect to take during the play of the hand.
Before bidding, partners may discuss how many tricks they think they can take, but cannot give any specific information about what cards they hold; then, each player announces his or her bid in turn.
A player may bid any number of tricks from 1 to 13, or may bid "nil," which is an undertaking not to win any tricks during that hand. The bid made by the partner of the nil bidder becomes that partnership's total bid for the hand.
A player whose team is at least 100 points behind may bid "blind nil." To do so, the player bids nil before looking at his or her cards.
The blind nil bidder then looks at his or her hand and may exchange two cards with partner by choosing two cards and placing them facedown. Partner picks up the two cards, then chooses two cards to return, which are also placed facedown.
Scoring
If a partnership takes at least as many tricks as its bid, it earns 10 points for each trick bid plus 1 point for each additional trick taken (if any). Taking additional tricks is not a good thing, however: If a team accumulates 10 extra tricks--as indicated by the last digit of the team's score going from 9 to 0 or more--100 points are deducted from its score.
A team failing to make its bid loses 10 points for each trick bid.
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If a player who bid nil takes no tricks, his or her side earns a bonus of 100 points. If a nil bidder takes at least one trick, his or her side loses 100 points. In either case, the hand is also scored normally, with each side winning or losing points according to their bids and number of tricks taken.
Blind nil earns 200 points if successful but loses 200 points if unsuccessful. If the doublenil passing option is used, a player on a team that is behind by at least 200 points may bid blind nil and then pass two cards to his or her partner facedown. Partner then passes two cards back before play begins.
source: games.yahoo.com
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