How to play two handed spades

Spades is a great card game for groups of three or more players. With four players, partners can work together in pairs. Yet this card game can be enjoyed with just two people. It's the simple matter of dealing that makes it possible. This version makes bidding a little tricky and it adds frustration you won't experience when playing with three or more people. If you can handle that, here's how to play two-handed spades.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 2 players
• Deck of playing cards

1. Draw your hand. Shuffle, cut and place the deck face down between the players. Take turns at shuffling or drawing first. A player takes the top card and decides whether to keep it or not. If he’s not keeping it, he must lay it face down beside the deck before looking at the next top card. Rejecting first card forces a player to keep the second. If he decides to keep the first card, then he may view the second before leaving it in the reject pile. A player may not look at both cards to choose between them. After player 1 has his chosen card, player 2 takes a look at the top card. She then has the same choice to keep it, or discard it and take the next card sight unseen.

2. Use the jokers. If you wish to play with the jokers, either remove two of the 2’s or simply deal one card to both players, before beginning to draw. Agree on which represents big and little joker. Big joker becomes the high trump with little joker second highest.

3. Declare a bid. After drawing out the entire deck, both players will have 13 cards (14 if you included the jokers). Now you have to decide how many of those 13 or 14 tricks you may take, based on the cards you have and the ones you discarded. The player to draw first, bids first. After both bids are declared; players may raise their bids once, but are not allowed to lower bids. A player may declare a bid of zero tricks for 100 points, or bid 10 tricks for 200 points.

4. Play the hand. A trick is awarded to the player laying the highest card. The playing card order A,K,Q,J,10--2 is observed. The player to draw and bid first also leads play by laying a card on the table face up. The opposing player must play a card of the same suit if he has one. If so, whoever played the highest card wins the trick. If the opposing player does not have a card of the suit led, he may take the trick by trumping with a spade, or he may relinquish the trick by playing a card from another suit. Spades may not be led, until after a spade is used to trump another suit.

5. Score the hand. After all the tricks are taken, both players count how many they booked. Those books are matched up against bids. If Tim bid 6 tricks and got exactly 6, he scores 60 points. If he got less than 6 he’ll have 60 points subtracted from his score. If Jane bid 7 tricks and got 8, she scores 71. The 1 in the digits column is known as a bag. A player scoring ten bags is penalized 100 points. A player to bid 0 and actually take no tricks scores 100. A player to bid for 10 and make it scores 200.

6. The player to score 500 points wins. If both players reach 500 on the same hand, the player with the higher score wins. In the event of a tie, players can congratulate each other, or call for a dead heat. In a dead heat, one hand is played. Whoever scores the most points wins.

[djfunkyslick]

on 4/6/2009 very good article...rrcr5