How to Play Spades with 6 Players

Spades is built for four, but family gatherings rarely come in fours. When six people want in, the kitchen-table answer is two decks and three partnerships. It's louder, longer and a lot of fun. The heart of the game is still the four-player partnership game from our spades rules: spades are trump, follow suit, bid your books and make them.

A clear note up front: Spades Night is a four-seat game. There's no six-player mode. At the end of this page there's a simple rotation that keeps six friends playing online. Everything else here describes the tabletop version.

Six-player spades has no single official rulebook. What follows is the most common way groups play it, with the choices you'll need to agree on flagged along the way.

The setup

• Players: Six, in three teams of two.
• Seating: Partners sit opposite each other, so the teams alternate: A, B, C, A, B, C around the table. Nobody sits next to a partner.
• Deck: Two standard 52-card decks shuffled together, 104 cards. It helps if both decks have the same back.
• Deal: Dealing 104 cards to six players doesn't divide evenly, so pick one:
  • Remove two low cards (for example, both 2♣) and deal 17 each.
  • Add the four jokers from both decks (108 cards) and deal 18 each, with the jokers as top trump.

Simplest is the first option: two decks, remove both 2♣, 17 cards each, A♠ high.

Identical cards: the one new rule

With two decks, every card exists twice. Sooner or later two A♥ land in the same trick. You need a house rule for who wins:

• Second beats first: the later identical card wins, which keeps the last player to act interested.
• First stays on top: the earlier identical card wins.

Either works. Choose one before the first deal and stick to it.

Bidding

Bidding works like the four-player game, just with more books on the table:

1. Starting left of the dealer, each player bids the number of books they expect to take.
2. Each team's contract is the sum of the two partners' bids.
3. With 17 tricks per hand, the three team bids together usually land somewhere around 15 to 17.

Nil is played the same way: +100 made, −100 failed. Some groups raise the board (the minimum team bid) because there are more tricks to go around. Agree up front.

Playing tricks

The play rules don't change:

• The player left of the dealer leads first.
• Everyone follows the led suit if they can.
• If you can't follow, you can cut with a spade or throw off any card.
• The highest spade wins the trick; if nobody played a spade, the highest card of the led suit wins, subject to your identical-card rule.
• Spades can't be led until they've been broken, unless a player holds only spades.

Six cards per trick means more chances for someone to be void and cut. Aces are less safe than in the four-player game, especially after the first round of a suit.

Scoring

Scoring is the same as partnership spades:

Many groups play to 500. With three teams, a game to 500 takes a good while; 300 keeps it to an evening.

Strategy with six

Count less on side-suit kings. With two of every card in play, your K♦ has two A♦ over it. A king is worth little unless the suit is short.

Trump length matters more. There are 26 spades in two decks. With 17 cards each, the average player holds four or five. Long trump wins the late tricks.

Two opponents can gang up on you. When one team leads, the other two will both try to set it. If that's your team, bid carefully.

Talk to your partner with your leads. You're three seats apart. Returning your partner's suit and leading your strong suits early still does the heavy lifting.

Other six-player options

• Cutthroat for six: Everyone plays alone with two decks. Chaotic and hard to plan. See cutthroat spades.
• Two tables of three: Split into two three-player games of cutthroat. See spades with 3 players.
• One table of four, two waiting: Classic four-player spades, with the losers rotating out. This is the one that works online.

Playing with six friends online

Spades Night always plays four seats, two partnerships, partners across. The cleanest six-person setup is a rotation:

1. One person starts a private table and shares the invite link or table code.
2. Four people take seats; the other two hang around (in a Discord call, the chat, wherever your group lives).
3. Play a quick match: four hands, about 15 minutes.
4. The losing team rotates out and the two waiting players sit in.

Quick matches are short enough that nobody waits long, and "winners stay" keeps the table competitive. If your group is already in a Discord voice channel, you can run the whole thing inside the call; see our Discord page.