Spade Pact

How to play

4 players in two teams, partners facing each other, with the classic deck of 52 cards: clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, the 2 to the ace, the ace highest. Spades are always trump. 13 cards each.

Bidding

• From the left of the dealer, each player bids the tricks they mean to take, 0 to 13. The bids of a team add up to its contract.
• A bid of 0 is nil: you mean to take no trick at all. Kept, it is worth 100 points; missed, it costs 100. Your partner plays for the contract alone.

A trick

• The left of the dealer leads the first trick. Follow the suit led if you can; otherwise play any card. The highest spade takes the trick, else the highest card of the suit led, and its player leads the next one.
• Spades may not be led until one has been played on a trick, unless you hold nothing else.

Scoring

A team that takes at least its contract scores 10 points a trick of the contract, plus 1 for each spare trick (a bag); short of it, it loses 10 points a trick of the contract. Every 10 bags piled up cost 100 points. After the hand in which a team reaches the target (300 by default), the higher score wins.