How to Play Two Person Spades

Two-person spades is fun and a good way to exercise your mind. The object is to bid how many books you think you can get each hand. Next, win the most books in each hand by using higher cards or spades, for the most points. See definitions below. There are a few different versions, but this is the most common.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Deck of Cards
• Paper & Pencil/Pen
• Time
• Snacks (optional)

1. What's What. You want to collect as many spades and face cards (Jack, Queen, King, Ace and Jokers) as possible. The order is 2 through Ace, with 2 being the smallest and the Ace is the highest of each suit. The only exception is for the spade suit, where 2 is the smallest and then after the Ace, small Joker, big Joker.

2. 

   Getting Started for two person Spades. First, take the 2 of Hearts and the 2 of Diamonds out of the deck (makes the deck even). Leave both Jokers in the pile and make sure you know the difference between the small Joker and the big Joker. (If the both Jokers look the same, mark as asterisk on one and use it as the big Joker.) One player shuffles the cards, the other cuts the deck and then put them in one pile between the two of you.

3. Sorting. The person who cuts, goes first. You pick up the top card, decide if you want it or not (remember What's What). If you want it, you put it in your hand. You then pick up the next card, look at it (to see what you didn't choose) and through it face-down in another pile. When you picked up the first card, if you didn't want it, you then put it face-down on the table and take the 2nd card. **You CANNOT change your mind. If you kept the 1st card, you MUST discard the 2nd card. If you discarded the 1st card, you MUST keep the 2nd card. Then the other person does the same thing. The two of you go back and forth until you both have 13 cards in your hands. Push the pile of discarded cards out of the way, you are done with these.

4. 

   Bidding. Put your cards in order (in your hand) by suit and lowest to highest in each suit. Now you have to count how many cards you have in your hand that you think can beat your opponent's cards. The minimum bid is 4 (called board). For example, if you have an Ace of Hearts, the probability of you winning that book is high. If you have the King and Ace, you can probably win 2 books. If you have the big Joker, that's the one card the beats everything. The more Spades you have the better and the less you have of the other suits, the better (it means when your opponent plays that suit, you can beat it automatically with a Spade).
   Each player, must bid. Bid only what you think you can win because you cannot change your bid once it's written down.

5. Playing. The player that cut at the beginning, puts out the 1st card. The opponent must play the same suit, a higher card means the opponent gets the book. If a lower card is played, the 1st player gets the book. If the 2nd player DOES NOT have the same suit, he/she can play a spade (any spade) beats another suited card and wins the book.
   Whoever wins the book, leads with the next card. Any suit can lead, even spades and the other player MUST play the same suit, unless they do not have it. The hand continues until all of the cards are now books for each player.

6. Scoring for two person Spades. The person keeping score writes down the bids at the beginning of the hand. For example, Lisa 4 and Larry 7. If Lisa gets 7 books, you just put the additional books next to her bid, so her score becomes 43 (because she won 3 more than she bid). If Lisa wins 7, Larry must have won 6 (13 total books). Lisa "set" Larry and his score becomes -70. If you get "set", you just add a "0" and it gets subtracted. The players decided the high score for winning, usually 500 points.

7. Keep it Going. Once you've played your 1st hand and the scores have been written down, you start all over. The next person shuffles all of the cards together (except those 2s), the other person cuts and the two of you begin pulling and picking cards again. You keep going until one of you wins by reaching the high score.

8. Definitions. Suit = the cards that match. Hearts are a suit, Spades are a suit and so on. Book = the cards won. Each book has 2 cards, yours and your opponents. Hand = a round in the game. Board = the lowest bid of books possible, 4. Renig = playing a suit other than what's been put down when you have the suit among the cards in your hand. If this happens and you don't catch it immediately, you lose 100 points. Set = means you didn't win as many books as you bid.

Tips & Warnings

• Some players do not bid the first hand and just play. When they start the second hand, then they start bidding.
• Remember the cards you discarded at the beginning of the hand. This means your opponent doesn't have them.
• Be careful about always underbidding. The object is to be as accurate as possible.
• Remember the order of the cards. While and Ace of Spades is a high card, there are 2 other cards than can beat it (small Joker and big Joker).

[Handmadedreams]

on 3/13/2009 Well done!