How to Bid in Spades

What you are bidding on

In partnership Spades you and your partner (North, sitting opposite you on CardCouch) each bid a number of tricks from 1 to 13, or Nil. The two numbers are added together to make the team bid. Bidding starts with the player to the dealer's left and goes clockwise, so half the time you bid before your partner and half the time after.

• Make the team bid: 10 points per trick bid, plus 1 point per overtrick. Each overtrick is a bag.
• Fall short: lose 10 points per trick bid. Bid 7, take 6, and you lose 70.
• Ten bags: every time your team's running bag count reaches 10, you lose 100 and 10 bags are removed.
• Nil: 100 if the bidder takes no tricks, minus 100 if they take any; the partner is judged on their own tricks alone.

The game is to 500 (or a loss at minus 200). Those numbers shape every bidding decision: a set is expensive, one bag is cheap, ten bags are expensive again.

Step 1: Count the sure tricks

Go through your hand and count the tricks that will win almost regardless of what the other players hold.

• Ace of spades: 1 trick. Nothing beats it.
• King of spades: 1 trick if you also hold the Ace, or if you hold at least three spades (the King can be caught by the Ace only if it falls early). A bare or doubleton King without the Ace is half a trick.
• Queen of spades: 1 trick with the Ace and King beside it; half a trick with one of them; otherwise count it under long spades below.
• Off-suit Aces: 1 trick each. An Ace of hearts, diamonds or clubs usually wins the first time its suit is led. Downgrade it to half a trick if you hold five or more cards in that suit, because someone is likely to be void and ruff.
• Long spades: 1 trick for each spade beyond the third.With five spades you have two extra tricks even if they are small, because once the other players run out, your spades win on their own. Four spades gives one extra; six gives three.

Step 2: Add the half tricks

Some cards win about half the time. Count each as half a trick, then round the total down.

• Off-suit Kings: half a trick when guarded by at least one other card of the suit. A singleton King is close to zero, because it has to be played under the Ace. A King with the Ace in the same suit is a full trick.
• Off-suit Queens: count Q-J-10 in one suit as half a trick together; count a lone Queen as nothing.
• A void or singleton: half a trick if you hold three or more spades to ruff with. A void with no spades is worth nothing.

Example: A♠ K♠ 7♠ 4♠, A♥ K♥ 9♥, K♦ 6♦ 2♦, 8♣ 5♣ 3♣. Sure tricks: A♠, K♠, one extra spade, A♥ = 4. Half tricks: K♥ (with the Ace it is a full trick, so 5), K♦ guarded = half. Total 5½, round down to 5. Bid 5.

Step 3: Combine with your partner

Your bid and your partner's are added. That has two practical consequences.

If you bid second, look at the total. A partner who bids 5 is telling you they hold spades and Aces, so your Kings are more likely to win: round half tricks up. A partner who bids 1 or 2 has a weak hand; your Kings will be trumped more often, so round down. If the two of you would total 8 or more, ask whether the last trick is really there. Thirteen tricks minus a combined 8 leaves the opponents only 5, and they will fight for every one.

If you bid first, bid your honest count and let your partner adjust. Do not shade your bid up in the hope that North will cover you; North does not know what you hold.

Watch the opponents' total too. If West and East have bid 4 and 3 before you, they claim 7 tricks. With your partner's 3 that makes 10, leaving 3 tricks unclaimed. If your count says 4, someone is wrong, and the safe play is to bid 3 and take the bag rather than risk the set.

Underbidding versus overbidding

The scoring is asymmetric, and your bidding should be too.

• One trick over: plus 1 point and a bag. Cheap.
• One trick under: the whole bid is lost. Bid 6 and take 5, and instead of +60 you get −60: a 120-point swing.
• Bags accumulate. At 0 to 5 bags you can afford to underbid by one. At 7, 8 or 9 bags a single overtrick may trigger the 100-point penalty, so bid your full count and, if you are still taking extra tricks, try to lose one on purpose late in the hand.

So the default is to underbid by half a trick, which the rounding already does, and to bid exactly when the bag count is high. Chronic underbidding is its own mistake: bidding 2 with a 4-trick hand leaves 20 points on the table and adds two bags every hand. And if the other three bids already total 11, there are two tricks left: bid 2 at most, whatever your count says.

When to bid Nil instead

A made Nil is worth 100, more than a made bid of 9. Consider it when your trick count comes to 0 or 1 and the hand has the right shape: no Ace or King of spades, at most two or three small spades, no off-suit Aces, and mostly low cards in the long suits. A singleton King is a liability for Nil; a long suit of 2 through 8 is an asset. The Nil bid guide covers hand shapes, how your partner covers you, and how to defend against an opponent's Nil.

Do not bid Nil because your hand is merely bad. A hand with one probable trick should bid 1. The penalty for a failed Nil is 100, and the tricks a failed Nil bidder takes become bags for the team rather than counting toward the partner's bid.

Worked hands