Super Spades rules: bidding, tricks and trump cards | WCGF
Learn classic Super Spades rules: dealing, bidding, following suit, playing trumps and making your contract. Get ready for Super Spades on WCGF.
Use a 52-card deck without jokers. With four players, each receives 13 cards. Partners sit opposite one another. In every suit, the ace ranks highest, followed by king, queen, jack and then ten down to two.
Before play begins, each player bids how many tricks they expect to win. In partnership play, the two partners’ bids form their combined contract. Some variants allow a zero bid, called nil, with its own bonus or penalty.
Each player plays one card in turn. You must follow the suit led if you can. If you have no card of that suit, you may play a spade or discard a card of another suit.
The highest spade played wins the trick. If no spades are played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads the next trick.
In the classic rules, you cannot lead with a spade until spades have been broken: a spade has been played to trump another suit. A player holding only spades may lead one even before this happens.
After all 13 tricks, compare the tricks won with the contract bid. Making your contract earns points; falling short incurs a penalty. Overtricks, nil bids and the winning score depend on the chosen scoring rules. These settings will be explained before WCGF games.
A partnership bidding 4 + 2 has a total contract of six tricks. If the partners take three and four tricks respectively, their seven tricks fulfil that contract. Tricks do not necessarily have to be won by the partner who bid them. Nil bids require separate treatment according to the chosen rules.
The first player leads the king of hearts. Anyone holding hearts must play one, even if they could win with a spade. A player with no hearts may trump. If both the three and ten of spades are played, the ten wins regardless of the hearts on the table.
Tricks above the contract may be recorded separately, often as bags. Depending on the rules, accumulating them can lead to a penalty. Winning every available trick is therefore not always the best objective. Check the table’s scoring system before deciding how aggressively to play.
A nil bid means the player intends to take no tricks. Their partner then tries to protect that bid while meeting their own objective. Nil is more than a small bid: taking just one trick can make it fail. Availability, rewards and penalties depend on the game’s rules.
After the thirteenth trick, both teams compare their results with their bids and apply the agreed scoring system. Another deal begins unless the end condition has been reached. The target score, any hand limit and tie-breaking rules should be clear before play starts.
Do not trump while you still hold the led suit. Do not treat every king as a guaranteed trick, or spend a high trump on a trick your partner already controls without a reason. Track remaining spades and reassess what your team needs as the hand develops.
Learning example, not the WCGF rules: bid 6, take 6 → +60; take 7 → +61; take 5 → −60. Ten bags → −100. Successful/failed nil → +100/−100.
14. Target score and variations
A common target is 500 points; if both teams reach it together, the higher score wins. Check the table rules for WCGF scoring, failed-nil tricks and tie-breaking. Classic examples: Pagat and Bicycle. Variations differ; these examples do not define WCGF scoring.