Spades Variations

The most common Spades house rule adds both jokers to the deck as the two highest trumps. The big joker (usually the full-color one) becomes the highest card in the game, the little joker ranks second, and the ace of spades drops to third. Mark the jokers before dealing so nobody argues mid-hand about which is which. Two jokers make 54 cards, which does not deal evenly to four players, so tables remove two low cards to get back to 52. The most common adjustment removes the 2 of clubs and the 2 of diamonds; some tables remove the 2 of hearts and the 2 of diamonds instead so both black deuces stay in play. Either way, each player still receives 13 cards. Jokers change bidding more than trick play. A joker is a guaranteed trick — nothing beats it except the other joker — so counting winners gets easier, while a nil bid becomes nearly hopeless for anyone dealt one.

Suicide Spades forces drama into every auction: one partner on each team must bid nil every hand. The other partner bids a normal number and tries to carry the contract alone. At most tables the partner who speaks first makes the choice. If they bid a number, their partner is locked into nil whether the hand suits it or not; if they bid nil themselves, their partner makes the counting bid. That single rule transforms the game. Hands that would be easy contracts in regular Spades become rescue missions, because someone holding kings and aces may still be the one stuck on nil. Strategy shifts toward protection and sabotage. The counting partner leads high cards early to cover the nil, while defenders feed low cards and try to force the nil bidder into winning a trick. Expect bigger swings than in standard play.

Whiz strips the auction down to two options: each player must bid exactly the number of spades in their hand, or bid nil. Nothing in between is allowed. The variant rewards a different kind of judgment. Holding four spades means bidding 4, even when three of them are the 2, 3, and 4 — so the skill moves into trick play, where you must manufacture wins with weak trumps or dodge tricks the bid never promised. Nil stays available as an escape hatch for spade-poor hands, and some tables add restrictions such as barring nil for a player holding the ace of spades. Whiz hands play fast because the bidding is nearly automatic, which makes it a popular change of pace between longer games of standard Spades.

Mirror (sometimes called Mirrors) removes choice from the auction entirely: your bid is always the number of spades you hold. Four spades is a bid of 4, one spade is a bid of 1, and a hand with no spades at all becomes a forced nil. With bidding on rails, Mirror becomes a pure card-play contest. The four bids always total thirteen in a standard deck, so every bid tells the table exactly how many trumps each player holds — and good players use that public information to plan finesses and voids from the first trick. Mirror is an excellent teaching variant. New players learn trick play and bag management without the pressure of judging a bid, then graduate to standard Spades once the card play feels natural.

Joker Joker Deuce Deuce — often chanted exactly that way at the table — is a popular casual ordering that promotes four cards above the ace of spades. From the top: big joker, little joker, the 2 of diamonds, then the 2 of spades, followed by the ace of spades and the rest of the suit in normal order. Because the 2 of diamonds becomes a trump, it leaves the diamond suit entirely, and the 2 of hearts and 2 of clubs are removed from the deck to keep the count at 52. That gives the trump suit sixteen cards — the longest of any common Spades variant — so trumps fly earlier and side-suit aces are riskier. The variant thrives in casual and family play and appears as a standard option in many Spades apps. If a table announces "jokers and deuces," ask which deuces count before you sort your hand.

Cutthroat Spades drops the partnerships entirely: three players bid and score alone, and the name is also used loosely for any Spades game played without partners. Remove one deuce — most tables pull the 2 of clubs — so the remaining 51 cards deal evenly into three 17-card hands. Bidding, spade trump, breaking spades, bags, and nil all work exactly as in the partnership game. What changes is the politics. Every trick you refuse falls to a rival instead of a partner, nil has no cover, and two players will often gang up to set whichever opponent leads the scoreboard. Each player scores their own contract at 10 points per bid trick, keeps a personal bag count with the usual 10-bag penalty, and races to the agreed target alone. Our online table deals the standard four-player partnership game, so treat this as a reference for your home table rather than a mode you can start here.

Two-player Spades replaces the deal with a drafting phase. There are no hands dealt: the deck sits face down between the players, and you build your 13 cards one decision at a time. Look at the top card — keep it and discard the next card face down, or discard it and keep the next card sight unseen. Alternate until each player holds 13 cards; the remaining 26 are out of play. Then the hand runs like standard Spades without partners: each player bids, spades are trump, spades must be broken before they can be led, and scoring uses the normal 10-points-per-bid-trick contract math with bags and nil. Because half the deck never enters play, card counting gets harder and speculative nils get braver. This version is a favorite for households with only two players. Our online game seats the full four-player partnership table, so use this as a rules reference for playing with a physical deck.

Six players usually form two partnerships of three, seated alternately, using a doubled deck adjusted so the cards deal evenly — a common recipe shuffles two 52-card decks together and removes two low cards for 17-card hands. With duplicate cards in play, agree before dealing whether the first or second identical card wins a tie; most tables rule that the first one played holds the trick. Everything else scales up from the four-player game: each team's bids combine into one contract, spades stay trump, and bags accumulate to the same 100-point penalty. Expect wilder auctions, since 34 of the 104 cards are trumps. As with the other player-count variants on this page, our online table is the classic four-player partnership format — these rules are here for home games that seat more than four.