Spades Terms
Posted : admin On 4/7/2022Noun a tool for digging, having an iron blade adapted for pressing into the ground with the foot and a long handle commonly with a grip or crosspiece at the top, and with the blade usually narrower and flatter than that of a shovel. Some implement, piece, or part resembling this. Spades (card game), a trick-taking card game Spades (suit), one of the four French suits commonly used in playing cards Music. The Spade, a 2011 studio album by Butch Walker. To back out of a deal or a promise. In a game of spades, the king of diamonds was played by an opponent, you have diamonds in your hand, but you play a spade/trump card indicating that you don't have any more diamonds, in order to win the book. Spades is the highest ranking suits in the game of Contract Bridge, a very popular pastime in the USA in the early 20th century, which is when and where the phrase originated. Despite the agricultural-sounding name and the shovel-like shape, the suit in cards has nothing directly to do with garden spades. Spades Terms bid - at the start of each round you must make a bid as to how many tricks you expect to take with your hand. Over bid - this refers to the 13 total hands (tricks) in a round the total bid by all players is more than the total number available.
Spades Rules
These are the rules I use for Spades. I got them from John McLeod's pagat.com, which has rules for pretty much all card games. (C) John McLeod, 2011 - reprinted with permission.
The teams
The four players are in fixed partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other. Deal and play are clockwise.
Rank of Cards
A standard pack of 52 cards is used. The cards, in each suit, rank from highest to lowest: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
The Deal
The first dealer is chosen at random, and the turn to deal rotates clockwise. The cards are shuffled and then dealt singly, in clockwise order beginning with the player on dealer's left, until all 52 cards have been dealt and everyone has 13.
The Bidding
In Spades, all four players bid a number of tricks. Each team adds together the bids of the two partners, and the total is the number of tricks that team must try to win in order to get a positive score. The bidding begins with the player to dealer's left and continues clockwise around the table. Everyone must bid a number, and in theory any number from 0 to 13 is allowed. Unlike other games with bidding, there is no requirement for each bid to be higher than the last one, and players are not allowed to pass. There is no second round of bidding - bids once made cannot be altered.
Example: South deals; West bids 3; North bids 1; East bids 4; South bids 4. The objective of North and South is to win at least 5 tricks (4+1), East and West try to win at least 7 (4+3).
A bid of 0 tricks is known as Nil. This is a declaration that that the player who bid Nil will not win any tricks during the play. There is an extra bonus for this if it succeeds and a penalty if it fails. The partnership also has the objective of winning the number of tricks bid by the Nil's partner. It is not possible to bid no tricks without bidding a Nil. If you don't want to go for the Nil bonus or penalty you must bid at least 1.
The Play of the Hand
The player to dealer's left leads any card except a spade to the first trick. Each player, in turn, clockwise, must follow suit if able; if unable to follow suit, the player may play any card.
A trick containing a spade is won by the highest spade played; if no spade is played, the trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. The winner of each trick leads to the next. Spades may not be led until either some player has played a spade (on the lead of another suit, of course), or the leader has nothing but spades left in hand.
Playing the first spade is known as 'breaking' spades.
A Boston is when one team gets all 13 tricks in a round.
Scoring
A side that takes at least as many tricks as its bid calls for receives a score equal to 10 times its bid. Additional tricks (overtricks) are worth an extra one point each.
Sandbagging rule: Overtricks are colloquially known as bags. A side which (over several deals) accumulates ten or more bags has 100 points deducted from its score. Any bags beyond ten are carried over to the next cycle of ten overtricks - that is if they reached twenty overtricks they would lose another 100 points and so on.
Example: Suppose a team whose score is 337 bids 5 tricks and they have 7 bags carried over from the previous rounds. If they win 7 tricks they score 52, taking their score to 389 (and their bags to 9). If they win 8 tricks they score 53, but lose 100 because they now have 10 bags, and their score becomes 290 (337 + 53 - 100). If they win 9 tricks they score 54 and lose 100, bringing their score to 291.
If a side does not make its bid, they lose 10 points for each trick they bid.
If a bid of nil is successful, the nil bidder's side receives 100 points. This is in addition to the score won (or lost) by the partner of the nil bidder for tricks made. If a bid of nil fails - that is, the bidder takes at least one trick - the bidder's side loses 100 points, but still receives any amount scored for the partner's bid.
When a nil fails, the tricks won by the nil bidder do not count towards making the partner's bid, but do count as bags for the team.
Spades Terms And Definitions
The side which reaches 500 points first wins the game. If both sides reach 500 points in a single deal, the side with the higher score wins.
Trick taking is one of the most iconic genres in the history of card games like Spades Plus. Trick taking belongs to the largest top-level category of card games that follows the classification-by-mechanism rule called Outplay games of which it also boasts the most number of variants. Each variant is then grouped into multiple rule-based sun categories like Plain Trick Games, Point Trick Games, Trick-and-Draw Games, Trick-Avoidance Games, and Quasi Trick-Taking Games.
As a whole, trick-taking genre consists of over a hundred card game variants, nevertheless, among the group lies some of the most iconic games ever conceived and Spades is one of those games. Devised in the 1930s, Spades served as one of the main forms of entertainment for WWII soldiers. Due to the simplicity of its ruleset, the popularity of Spades spread like wildfire from the U.S, and to the rest of the world.
Today, Spades remains one of the most popular trick-taking games across the planet. The millions of players who play the video game version of Spades serve as evidence to its popularity. One of the biggest titles is Spades Plus developed from Zynga developer of the world-renowned Zynga Poker. Join the millions of spades players and enthusiasts in one of the largest online card-game community in the free-to-play genre. So what are you waiting for? Click on the ‘Play Now’ button today and explore the fun world of Spades.
Spades are one of the easiest card game to learn, winning is dependent on your strategic skills and real-time planning. It is all about predicting how many tricks you can do, bid your estimated number of tricks, and ensure that you and your partner can fulfill the combined total of your tricks in order to score. In other words, all you have to do is look at your cards, analyze, bid based on your estimate and unleash your strategic skills. With that said, Zynga was able to innovate a modest game of cards into a highly immersive online game that comes with multiple features just like the ones below.
Brilliant Audio Visual Presentation
Spades Plus carries that classic Zynga presentation made up of high definition graphics, fluid animation, and immersive audio effects. These modest features allow players to jump into a game of spades at a click of a button. Not to mention, that the sound effects come with an innovative design that will alert the player even when his favorite music track is playing on the background.
Spades Terms
Spades Reinvented in Spades Plus
Spades Plus features a decent number of game modes just waiting for you to explore. Right off the bat, the player can either jump into a quick game in one of the random rooms in the game. Players can also join spades purists in a room dedicated to Classic Spades. For those who are looking for special rooms, the game also has you covered.
Special Rooms is comprised of four rooms; the first one is VIP that features customized tables and expensive buyouts. Next is the Solo Room, which, as the name suggests, does not allow partnerships and blind Nil in playing with three other people.
Whiz Room is another type of special room whose main rule is that players must bid Nil. In other words, this room will test both your analytic and strategic skills. The fourth room is the Mirror Room. The main rule of this room is that the players’ bid must equal the number of spades in his deck. Other than that, players can also create their own room and set their own rules through the Create Table tab.
Competitive Multiplayer Tournaments & Challenges
Spades Plus also comes with a solid and competitive online multiplayer structure. First is the Solo Tournaments that comes with its own bracketing system. Solo tournaments allow the player to compete and clash against other players up until the Grand Finals. Knockout Tournaments, on the other hand, is another type of challenge wherein the player must not lose a single round. A single defeat will lead to elimination or for the player being “knocked out of the tournament.”
A Rewarding Spades Plus Experience
Spades Terminal
Spades Plus also features a solid reward system that will smother the player with coins from time-to-time. Players receive a whopping 20,000 coins as a welcome bonus in addition to the daily bonus. In addition, Tournaments, challenges, and regular games also provide a decent if not an astonishing number of coins.
Aside from the basic reward structure, Spades Plus also has a stable and solid social structure. Unlike other online games where the chat is public, the game comes with a “Public or Private” chat option that the player can toggle anytime. With that said, if you want to become part of the ever-growing Spades community, then, Spades Plus is the way to go!
Spades Plus is one of the better spades version in the free-to-play genre of games. It’s a modest game with colossal features. So, what are you waiting for? Join the millions of Spades players across the globe by checking out this amazing game today!
Game Features
- Brilliant Audio-Visual and Animation
- A Diverse Collection of Game Modes
- Various Unlockable Decks
- Tons of Free Coins
- Free-to-Play