How to Begin a Game of Spades

Video Transcript

"Four people sit at a table, two sets of partners playing opposite each other. And you work with your partner and you understand the bidding and the language that's used and then you eventually have a little bit of cohesion with your partner. But the basic premise, the basic structure of spades is the partnership aspect, that you will be working with a partner, you're playing against the other team, and if you work together proficiently, then you begin to utilize this knowledge and you can gain an advantage over opponents who have not played as often or as frequently. So again, four suits, spades are always trump. There's one round of bidding, you have an option to either say zero which is nil or say a numerical bid and then you have a final contract in which both sides bids are combined, we'll be covering that later. It's thirteen tricks and the score, which we'll also be reviewing, is tallied. There's a game limit and so forth. So the basics are, partnership play, spades are always trump, somebody makes an opening lead, and you have to follow suit where possible. This is a nice easy game to learn. It's a very comfortable game. It's a very social game; however, it can be played at advanced levels, particularly in tournaments. And I'm sure that once you get this down and you learn to understand this concept, then the game will be much easier. By the way, when you play on the internet, the computer does all the work for you. This is another topic which we'll be discussing. You cannot lead out of turn, you cannot renege, you have to follow suit and so forth. So keep in mind that this is a basic part of the game."