How to play
- Two teams. Four players, two teams of two. Your partner sits across the table from you, so the play goes you, an opponent, your partner, the other opponent.
- The deal. One deck of 52 cards, aces high. Everyone gets 13 cards. Each deal is a hand; the deal moves one seat to the left every hand. Spades are always trump.
- The bid. Starting on the dealer’s left, everyone says once how many tricks they expect to take, from 0 to 13. The two bids of a team, added up, are its contract. A bid of 0 is nil: a promise to take no trick at all.
- The tricks. The player on the dealer’s left leads the first trick. Everyone plays one card in turn. Follow the suit that was led if you can; if you cannot, play any card, a spade too. The highest spade takes the trick; with no spade in it, the highest card of the led suit does. Whoever takes a trick leads the next.
- Leading spades. Nobody may lead a spade until a spade has been played on an earlier trick: then spades are broken. A hand of nothing but spades may lead one at any time. The first lead of a hand is never a spade, unless that hand holds only spades.
- The score. A team that takes at least its contract scores 10 points for each trick of the contract, and 1 point for each extra trick. The extra tricks are bags. A team that takes fewer is set: it loses 10 points for each trick of the contract.
- Bags. Bags add up from hand to hand. Each time a team reaches 10 bags, it loses 100 points and those 10 bags are crossed out.
- Nil. A player who bid nil and took no trick wins 100 points for the team. One who took a trick loses 100; those tricks do not help the partner’s contract, they count as bags. There is no blind nil at our tables.
- The end. After a hand in which a team reaches 500 points, or falls to −200, the game is over and the higher team wins. If both teams have exactly the same score, one more hand is played.
The score of a hand, for each team
| When | Points |
|---|---|
| Contract made | +10 a trick bid, +1 a bag |
| Contract set | −10 a trick bid |
| Nil made | +100 |
| Nil lost | −100, and its tricks are bags |
| Every 10 bags | −100 |
An example: you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, a contract of 7. The two of you take 9 tricks: 70 points and 2 bags, so 72.
At the online table
- To bid, tap a number block (it lifts), then tap it again or tap “Bid”. The block with a pencil tick is what the table would bid for your hand.
- Each bid stands in front of its player as a wooden block; the tricks they take lie next to it, and a pencilled outline shows each trick still missing.
- Tap a card to lift it, then tap it again (or “Play”) to play it. Only the cards you may play look bright on your turn.
- On a keyboard: Tab to the bid blocks or to your hand, the arrow keys move along your hand, Enter chooses and Enter again bids or plays. M turns the sound off.
- Each card has a 25-second timer and a bid has 30 seconds. If time runs out, the table plays a safe card for you, or bids what your hand is worth (never nil).
- An empty seat is taken by a bot, always marked as a bot.
- Point at a card of your hand or at a player’s bid and tricks, or hold a finger on it, to read what it is and why a card cannot be played now.
Why it is fair
A secret seed chooses the first dealer and shuffles every deal of the game. You see its fingerprint when the game starts and the seed itself when it ends, so you can deal every hand again and check it. Verify a game.