The table

Spades is played by two partnerships. You and your computer partner Briggs sit across from each other, against two computer opponents, Frost and Vale. A 52-card deck is dealt 13 to each seat.

Bidding

Before each hand, everyone bids in turn how many tricks they'll take — a number from 1 to 13, or nil: a bid to take exactly zero tricks, scored on its own. Your team's combined bid is the sum of you and your partner's numeric bids (a nil bid doesn't add to it).

Playing a trick

• Whoever sits left of the dealer leads the first trick, and the winner of each trick leads the next.
• Follow the suit that was led if you can. If you can't, play anything.
• Spades can't be led until a spade has been played on an earlier trick ("broken") — unless your hand is nothing but spades.
• The highest spade played wins the trick outright; if no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led wins.

Scoring a hand

If your team takes at least your combined bid, you score 10 points per bid trick plus 1 point per overtrick ("bag") above it. Fall short and you lose 10 points per bid trick instead — overtricks don't save you.

A nil bid scores separately: +100 if that player takes zero tricks all hand, -100 if they take even one.

Bags

Overtricks pile up across the match. Every time your team's running bag count reaches 10, you lose 100 points and the count drops back by 10 — so making your bid exactly is often better than piling up bags.

Winning

Hands are dealt until a team's score reaches 500 or falls to -200 — whichever team then has the higher score wins the match.

Your record

Games played and won, your highest winning score, how often your nil bids succeeded, and your current and best win streaks are all saved locally on this device.