Two partnerships, thirteen hands, bid and tricks side by side — plus the bag counter that decides more Spades games than anything else on the card.
| Hand | Team 1 ______________ | Team 2 ______________ | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bid | Made | Hand | Total | Bid | Made | Hand | Total | |
| 1 | ||||||||
| 2 | ||||||||
| 3 | ||||||||
| 4 | ||||||||
| 5 | ||||||||
| 6 | ||||||||
| 7 | ||||||||
| 8 | ||||||||
| 9 | ||||||||
| 10 | ||||||||
| 11 | ||||||||
| 12 | ||||||||
| 13 | ||||||||
| 14 | ||||||||
| 15 | ||||||||
| 16 | ||||||||
| Bags | ||||||||
Spades is played by two partnerships sitting across from each other. Each hand, all four players bid the number of tricks they expect to take; the two partners' bids add together into a single team contract. Write each team's combined bid in the Bid column and the tricks they actually won in Made.
If a team took at least its combined bid, it scores 10 points per bid trick, plus 1 point for each overtrick. If it fell short, it loses 10 points per bid trick and scores nothing else. First to 500 wins.
Every overtrick is a bag. Bags are worth a single point each, which feels harmless — but for every ten bags a team accumulates across the whole game, it is docked 100 points. Keep a running bag count in the bottom row and strike off a hundred each time it crosses ten. Teams that never track bags routinely lose games they thought they were winning.
A player may bid Nil — a promise to take no tricks at all. Made, it is worth +100 to the partnership; failed, −100. The partner's bid is scored separately as normal. Blind Nil, declared before looking at your hand, doubles both numbers to ±200.
How many points do you need to win Spades? 500 in the standard game. Shorter games are often played to 300.
What happens at 10 bags? The team loses 100 points and the bag counter resets by ten — carry over any remainder.
Can both partners bid Nil? Yes, though it is very risky — each is scored separately.