## Spades

### Players

Four, in two teams. From 1 to 4 of the players are human and the rest are played by the computer. Players 1 and 3 are on one team, players 2 and 4 are on the other team.

### Cards

Spades uses a regular 52-card deck in which the cards are ranked A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Spades are always trump.

### The Deal

Each player receives 13 cards. The first player deals the first hand. Each successive hand is dealt by the player to the left of the previous dealer.

### Bidding

Starting with the player to the dealer's left, each player in turn bids the number of tricks he expects to win, from the toal possible of thirteen. His bid, plus his partner's, constitutes the team bid. The total does not have to equal thirteen tricks.

A player may choose to bid Nil by selecting 0 as his bid, this indicates his intention not to win any tricks.

If neither player bids Nil, then the combined team bid must be at least 4.

### The Play

The player to the dealer's left leads first and may lead any suit except spades, which may not be led until the suit has been "broken" by a spade discard on a previous trick (unless the player has no other suit to lead). Players must follow suit if possible. A trick is won by the highest trump or by the highest card in the suit led. Each trick is kept by the player winning it.

### Scoring

The object of the game is for each team to take at least the number of tricks that they bid. If one partner has bid Nil, his bid and his partner's are scored independently, and then the scores are combined.

Tricks count 10 points each for a team if the team bid is reached, 10 against if it is set. (Negative scores are possible.) Tricks won in excess of the team bid count 1 each. A bid of Nil scores a bonus of 100 points if made or a -100 points if set. Each time a team underbids, the number of tricks underbid is saved. If a team reaches a total of 10 underbid tricks it is penalized 100 points.

### Winning

The game is played until one team wins by having at least 500 points and a higher score than the other team.

### Quitting

You may quit the game at any time by clicking the OK button in the top-right corner of the screen.