Chips' Fun House ~ View topic

Post #501
I was playing a game of Internet spades. This version came with windows XP but is hosted by zone.com. They give you about 20 chat strings and don't let you type your own to disable "Talking cross the board" or Cheating.

Tonight, I was "gold 2" and I bet "blue 3" was a CFH member by his quickness to respond to a chat of "Thanks Partner" by saying "Your Wecome" even though he was on the other team.

This is sort of embarassing for me cuz I am an advanced player, and when I was thinking "blue 3" was CFH I forgot I bid nil and took a book/trick/hand whatever you want to call it, losing 100 points for my team.

If a CFH member can vouch that they WERE INFACT "blue 3" I would feel better.

lol how do you play spades?

Post #507
Find three friends. Pick a partner, 2 v 2. Take a deck of cards. Shuffle.

Deal out the whole deck (13 cards apiece for four people).

Bid. Count how many "Books" you think you will take. Spades will beat any suit. If you bid "0" and take "0" yourself you win 100 points for you team.

Once that is writen down on a score sheet, the hand is started. First person lays a card down, lets say, 2 of hearts. You cannot play a spade unless a spade has been used when someone has none of the starting suit.

You go around playing cards. The highest card wins the "book". Four cards or once around the table equalls a book. You have to follow suit unless you do not have any of the suit. Since the example is hearts, you have to play a heart. If you have no hearts, you can play a spade (spades beat all) or throw away a cord from another suit. Not playing a spade in this case is called "throwing the book". You can do that for stratagy...read on.

If you bid , for example, "6" total with you partner and make "6" you get 60 points. Anything more is called a "sandbag" and counts as one. Ten sand bags and you lose 100 points.

"Sandbag"ing is a tournement rule, you do not have to count 10 "sandbags" as loss of 100 points. Just make sure you call "Sandbags" or "No Sandbags" before you start the game. (More advaced players like me like the "Sandbag" rule cuz it teaches you to bid more acurately).

Once all cards are played, count the books each team got and score it based on that team's total bid (bid x 10 + 1 for each overbook or "sandbag") and score it.

Next dealer shuffles. (goes around clokwise as any other card game does). First team to 500 wins.

You can bid "blind" before you look at your cards. If you make it you get double points. The most popular "blind" bids are blind six and double nil.

Blinds (bid with out looking at your hand) are worth double what they would be if you already looked at you hand. Blind Six is 120 points and Blind or Double Nil (00) is worth 200.

This MS version hosted be zone.com does not allow any blind bid but double nil. It does however count "Sandbags".

Stratagy: If youi bid nil, play the highest card in the current suit the you can with out taking the book. If you do not have the current suit, "throw off", or play the highest you have in any suit but spades, that way you have less high cards to mess up your nil.

Strategy: Try not to take a book your partner can win...your working together. Playing higher than you partner when s/he can win is called "cutting your partners throat".

Stratagy: Let you partner take the book. If you partner takes it by a low card, the better your chances of "cutting you opponants" (not letting them take all the books that they bid).

Strategy: Always bid nil if you think you can pull it off. This will ensure your team's win.

These are Expert's Rules. Don't expect to be able follow the strategies perfectly your first game.

Don't worry, after you play a little you will get better at bidding exactely the number of books you will take. As a rule of thumb, count your Aces, Kings, and one spade. But be warned: that rule of thumb does not always work.

Compare my rules to http://hoylegames.sierra.com/rules/hoy_spd_rules.jsp

lol.wav Sierra Games used to own Half Life!

Forum H4xor Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 2504 Location: NJ

stop nnumbering your post, kthnxbi

is that like hearts?

if so, its hard to understand/explain

and im so confused by the "question"(i think..)

My original question was, I believe I was playing against a CfH memeber and I was looking for confirmation from that member.

Yes, it's like Hearts, only differences are:
1) The name of the game specifies the trump suit.
2) In hearts it's golf-like scoring (lowest score wins when loser gets above 500). In Spades the high score wins.
3) Spades is partner based, Hearts is not.