To play spades online, you need to form two teams of two people and the standard 52-card pack. The goal of each team is to reach a certain number of points first, typically 501, but the number may be negotiated at the start of the game. Spades is a member of the Whist family of card games. Like other games in the family, Spades is played in pairs, with teams of players sitting across from each other. The game first appeared in the United States in the 1930s, and its popularity sharply increased during the Second World War.

The game starts with each player drawing a single card. The player with the highest card becomes the dealer, and his or her first task is to deal 13 cards to each player, dealing one card at a time, face down, starting with the player on the dealer’s left.

After all cards have been dealt, it’s time for each player to decide how many tricks they will be able to win that round. Winning a trick is simple: you just need to have the highest card in the suit that leads. However, it’s important to keep in mind that spades trump every suit regardless of what suit leads.

Players announce their guesses, which are called bids. The bids of the two players in each team are added together, and the resulting number is called a contract. The round starts with the player to the left of the dealer playing a card in any suit form their hand. Other players must follow suit. If they can’t, they may play a trump or discard. The player who plays the highest trump or if no trump was played, the player who played the highest card in the suit led, wins the trick and leads the next round.

At the end of a round, players multiply the number of tricks in their contract by 10 points and add one point or every trick won above the total in their contract. For example, if one team’s contract is 10, and the team wins 10 tricks, the score would be 100 points. If the same team wins 11 tricks, the score would be 101 points. If a team breaks its contract, no points are awarded.