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Spades

Spades

Spades - Free Online Spades: Partnership Classic and Cutthroat for 2-6 Players

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Spades Online: The Bidding Game, Played Properly

Foony Spades is a free online spades card game with invite-link rooms, the classic 4-player partnership game, a cutthroat mode for 2 to 6 players, and 4 bot difficulty tiers. The rules are scored by the book: nil bids pay or cost 100, every overtrick is a bag, ten bags cost you 100 points, and the first side to reach the room's target score while ahead takes the game. There is no signup and nothing to install; the page opens into a lobby and the next deal is one click away.

Spades earned its place at the top of the trick-taking family the hard way. It spread through American soldiers' barracks in the 1940s precisely because it is fast to deal, brutal to misbid, and endlessly replayable, and it has been a fixture of dorm rooms, break rooms, and kitchen tables ever since. What makes it special is the contract: unlike most card games, you declare your score before you play a single card.

The ace of spades landing on a won trick at a green felt online spades table

Play Spades Online with Friends or Against Bots

Create a room, share the link, and friends are seated in seconds from a phone, tablet, or desktop browser. The host picks the room's shape in the lobby: Partnership for the classic 2v2 with partners across the table, or Cutthroat for every player on their own. The target score is configurable too. Play to 100 for a coffee-break match, 200 or 300 for a standard session, or the traditional 500 for a full evening. A turn timer (20 seconds by default, 5 to 60 or off entirely) keeps the table moving.

Short a player? Bots fill any seat at four tiers: Easy, Casual, Skilled, and Expert. A solo room seats you with the classic setup, a bot partner across the table and two bot opponents, and Expert bids its hands tightly enough that loose table talk will not save you. Solo wins award XP scaled to the tier you choose.

Rooms also scale far past the table. A Foony Spades room holds up to 100 people: extra players queue behind a seat, see that seat's hand, and rotate in round-robin, one card each, so a party never leaves anyone watching from the rail.

Cutthroat Spades for 2, 3, or More Players

Cutthroat spades (the no-partners game) is where the table gets mean, because nobody is coming to cover your bid. Foony deals it by player count:

2 Players

13 cards each, head to head. The fastest way to learn bidding, and half the deck stays hidden.

3 Players

The classic 3-handed deal: 17 cards each, one card out of play, and bids that climb sky high.

4 to 6 Players

13, 10, or 8 cards each. More seats means thinner hands and uglier knife fights over every trick.

Two handed spades plays noticeably differently from the full table: with 26 cards never dealt, you cannot count suits to certainty, so reading your opponent's leads matters more than memorizing what is out. Three handed spades swings the other way, since 17-card hands make long spade suits and double-digit bids routine. Every cutthroat size keeps the full rule set, nil bids and bag penalties included.

How to Play Spades

First, the one word that unlocks everything: a trick is a single round of play where each player puts one card on the table, and the best card wins the little pile. A 13-card hand is just 13 tricks in a row. Every hand runs through the same four beats:

1 · Bid

Look at your cards and promise how many tricks you will win this hand. That promise is your contract. Promising zero is called nil, a 100-point dare. Partners' promises add together.

2 · Follow Suit

Play clockwise, one card each. You must play the same suit as the trick's first card if you have one. Out of that suit entirely? Then you may play any card you like.

3 · Spades Rule

Spades beat every other suit, no matter the number; that is what "trump" means. Highest spade wins the trick, or the highest card of the starting suit if no spade shows up. The winner starts the next trick.

4 · Score

Keep your promise and every trick you bid pays 10 points. Fall short and you lose 10 per trick you bid. Extra tricks beyond the bid are bags: 1 point now, big trouble at ten.

One more rule trips up every new player: you may not start a trick with a spade until someone has played a spade on another suit's trick (unless spades are all you have left). Watch one trick play out below. The gold crown sits on whichever card is winning, and watch where it ends up:

Step 1 · The Lead

9 ♣ ♣

The 9 of clubs starts the trick. It wears the crown for now, and every player after this must play a club if they have one.

Step 2 · The Cover

9 ♣ K ♣ ♣

The king of clubs goes up. It is the highest club so far, so the crown hops over to the king.

Step 3 · The Cut

9 ♣ K ♣ 2 ♠ ♠

The last player has no clubs at all, so they may play anything. They pick the tiny 2 of spades, and because spades beat every other suit, the 2 steals the crown and the whole trick.

And here is what a hand of bidding actually pays. These are the standard tournament-style rules documented at Pagat's authoritative Spades rules page, scored exactly:

The Score Sheet

✓

You promised 4 tricks and won 6

Promise kept: 4 tricks × 10 points, plus 1 point for each extra. The 2 extras are "bags". Remember them.

+42

✗

You promised 4 tricks but won only 3

One short is as bad as four short: the whole promise fails, 10 points lost per trick promised.

-40

0

You bid nil and won zero tricks

The 100-point dare pays off. Win even one trick and this becomes -100 instead.

+100

10

Your tenth bag arrives

Those 1-point extras were a loan. Collect ten of them across the game and the penalty hits, then the count restarts.

-100

In partnership games the two partners' promises merge into one contract that they make or miss together. The nil bidder is the exception: a nil is always scored alone, and any tricks a failed nil accidentally wins still count as bags for the team.

Spades Strategy: Bid Tight, Bag Light

Count your bid from the top down: an ace is a trick, a protected king is most of one, and every spade past your third is nearly automatic. A suit where you hold one card or none, with spare spades behind it, is worth another. If the honest count lands between two numbers, bid the lower one; bags are a slow leak and a broken contract is a flood.

Play your lowest cards from your longest ordinary suit early. It empties that suit from other hands so your spades come alive, and it teaches you who has run out of what. Save your high spades for tricks that matter, never spend the ace of spades on a trick your partner is already winning, and once your bid is safely made, start losing on purpose: play your big dangerous cards into tricks an opponent has already locked up, so those cards stop winning you bags later.

Nil is a contract for the whole partnership. If your partner bids nil, lead your highest ordinary cards so they can tuck their dangerous ones underneath, and overtake your partner without hesitation if they are ever about to win a trick. The score sheet in the corner of the table shows every side's bags at all times, so you can see the 100-point penalty coming five tricks before it lands.

Leaderboards and Achievements

Every match feeds the Spades leaderboards, with daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and all-time boards to climb. The eight Spades achievements trace the game's whole emotional range: Table Stakes for your first finished game, Perfect Bid for making a contract on the nose with zero bags, Nailed the Nil and Big Bidder for the two flavors of audacity, Run a Boston for sweeping every trick in a hand, Comeback Kid for winning after trailing by 150, Cutthroat Champion for taking a solo table of four or more, and Sandbagger for the players who collect ten bags and would like a word with their bidding.

Petey the pirate mascot

Made contracts and broken ones alike earn Foony coins and account XP, progress you keep no matter which Foony game you wander to next. Winners simply collect a fatter cut.

Foony coin

Spades vs Hearts: Two Trick-Takers, Opposite Souls

Spades and Hearts deal the same 52 cards to the same four chairs and then ask opposite questions. Hearts is an avoidance game: tricks are radioactive, and the winner is whoever dodged best. Spades is a promise-keeping game: tricks are currency, and the winner is whoever predicted their own hand most honestly. If you like the constant low-grade tension of a contract you must deliver, Spades is the deeper well, and the bag rule punishes even overdelivering. When you want the same table energy with cards you can shout about, Foono, our UNO-style card game, trades bidding discipline for chaos in the same instant rooms.

Spades Online: Frequently Asked Questions

How do you play spades?
Each hand, every player is dealt 13 cards (in the classic 4-player game) and bids how many tricks they expect to take. Players then play one card each per trick: you must follow the suit that was led if you can, spades are always trump, and the highest spade (or the highest card of the led suit) wins the trick. Make your bid and you score 10 points per trick bid; fall short and you lose 10 per trick bid. On Foony Spades, the first side to reach the room's target score while ahead wins.
What is a nil bid in spades?
Bidding nil means bidding zero tricks: if you take no tricks at all that hand, your side scores 100 bonus points, but if even one trick falls to you, your side loses 100 instead. A failed nil's tricks also count as bags. Nil is the riskiest and most exciting call in spades, and Foony Spades supports it in every mode: just bid 0 during the bidding phase.
What are bags (sandbags) in spades?
Every trick you take beyond your bid is a bag, worth 1 point each. Bags look harmless until they pile up: collect 10 bags across hands and your side immediately loses 100 points. Good spades players bid accurately rather than low on purpose: chronic underbidding is called sandbagging, and the scoreboard on Foony Spades shows your bag count at all times so you can see the penalty coming.
What is cutthroat spades?
Cutthroat (also called solo or 3-handed spades) is spades without partners: every player bids and scores alone. Foony Spades supports cutthroat for 2 to 6 players: 3 players are dealt 17 cards each, 4 players get the classic 13, and 5 or 6 players split the deck evenly. The host picks cutthroat or partnership when creating the room.
Can you play spades with 2 players?
Yes. Create a cutthroat room on Foony Spades for exactly 2 players and each of you is dealt a 13-card hand, head-to-head, with full bidding, nil, and bag rules. Two-handed spades plays faster than the 4-player game and is a great way to learn bidding.
How do I play spades online with friends?
Create a room on Foony Spades and share the invite link: friends join from any modern browser, with no app to install. Pick partnership for the classic 2v2 game or cutthroat for every player on their own, set the target score and turn timer, and fill empty seats with bots if you are short a player.
How many people can play spades in one Foony room?
A spades table seats 4 players in partnership mode and 2 to 6 in cutthroat, but Foony Spades rooms hold up to 100 people: extra players queue behind a seat, share that seat's hand, and rotate in one card at a time, so even a packed room deals everyone in.
Can I play spades against the computer?
Yes. Foony Spades has 4 bot difficulty tiers, picked once per room. A solo room starts you with three bots: a bot partner across the table and two bot opponents, exactly like the classic setup. Solo games award reduced XP that scales with the bot difficulty you choose.
What is the difference between Spades and Hearts?
Both are trick-taking games played with a standard 52-card deck, but they pull in opposite directions. In Hearts you avoid taking tricks that contain penalty cards, and the lowest score wins. In Spades you bid how many tricks you will take, spades are always trump, and you score by delivering exactly what you promised. Foony Spades plays the bidding game: if you prefer making promises to dodging penalties, this is your table.
Is Foony Spades free, with no signup?
Yes. Foony Spades costs nothing and drops you straight into a lobby, no account needed. Signing up is optional: it adds cross-device progress, leaderboard ranks, and achievements, but guests get every mode and every bot tier.
Do I need to download anything to play spades?
No. Foony Spades deals every hand in the browser you already have, on desktop, tablet, or phone: nothing to install, nothing to update. That also keeps it playable on school and office networks that ban game installers.
Does Foony Spades have leaderboards and achievements?
Yes. Wins on Foony Spades feed leaderboards filterable by day, week, month, year, or all-time, and there are eight achievements to chase, from Nailed the Nil (make a nil bid) to Run a Boston (take every trick in a hand). Playing also earns Foony coins and account XP that carry across every game on Foony.
Where is the best place to play spades online?
If you want real multiplayer, Foony Spades is built for it: invite-link rooms for friends, classic partnership and cutthroat modes for 2 to 6 players, nil bids and bag penalties scored by the book, 4 bot tiers for solo practice, and leaderboards. It is the same game popular spades apps offer, playable free in your browser.
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