Spades glossary
Spades terms, A to Z
The words you will hear at a spades table, explained the way a good partner would.
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- 10 for 200
- 10 for 200 is an optional spades rule: a team that bids 10 or more books and makes it scores a flat 200 instead of the usual 100 or more. Miss it and you lose 200. At…
B
- Bags
- A bag is any trick your team wins beyond its contract. Each bag adds 1 point, but bags pile up across hands, and every 10 bags costs your team 100 points. At Spades…
- Big Joker and Little Joker
- In spades with jokers, the Big Joker is the highest card in the deck and the Little Joker is second. Both count as spades: they follow spade leads, trump other suits and…
- Blind nil
- Blind nil is a promise to take zero tricks, made before you look at your hand. It scores +200 if you pull it off and −200 if you take a single trick. At Spades Night it…
- Board
- Board is the minimum contract a team can play. At Spades Night a team whose combined bid is under 4 is raised to 4 automatically, which players call going board. It…
- Book
- In spades, a book is simply a trick: one card from each of the four players, won by the highest spade or, if no spade was played, the highest card of the suit led. There…
- Boston
- A Boston is when one team wins all 13 tricks in a single hand. At Spades Night that earns a +200 bonus on top of the normal score for the hand. It is not an automatic…
- Breaking spades
- Breaking spades means a spade has been played for the first time in a hand, usually to trump a trick in another suit. Until then, nobody may lead a spade unless their…
C
- Cutthroat
- Cutthroat spades is spades where every player plays for themselves: no partners, no team contracts. It's most often played with three people, 17 cards each after…
D
- Deuces
- Deuces high is a spades rule that promotes two 2s to the top of the trump suit. At Spades Night the 2♦ (two of diamonds) counts as a spade and ranks above the 2♠, which…
- Double nil
- Double nil means both partners on a team bid nil in the same hand. There is no team contract and board doesn't apply. Each nil is scored on its own, ±100 (or ±200…
N
- Nil
- Nil is a bid of zero: you promise to win no tricks at all. Make it and your team scores +100; take even one trick and it is −100. Your partner's bid is scored separately…
R
- Renege
- A renege is playing a card of a different suit when you could have followed the suit led. At home tables the usual penalty is 3 books moved to the other team. At Spades…
S
- Set
- A team is set when it takes fewer tricks than its contract. It loses 10 points for every trick it bid, and gets nothing for the tricks it did take. Bid 7, take 6: you…
T
- Trump
- Trump is the suit that beats every other suit. In spades, spades are always trump: the lowest spade beats an ace of hearts. You may play a spade on another suit only…
V
- Void
- A void is a suit you have no cards in. When that suit is led, you don't have to follow, so you can trump with a spade or throw away any card. Voids make small spades…