Spades card game strategy and examples

Looking for that extra edge to make your game as sharp as the Ace of Spades itself? You're in the right place! I'm Holger, your Spades strategist, here to walk you through ace bids, daring nils, and the unspoken communication with your partner—it's like reading minds, but with cards!

Before you start, brush up or learn how to play Spades with our how to Play Spades guide. Ready to put your skills to the test? Play Spades online with other players! Now, let's shuffle up and deal. You're about to be the Spades partner everyone wants at their card table!

Elo ratings for team games

by Holger @ World of Card Games December 25 2017

Table of Contents

Elo Ratings Using Team Average

This calculator takes the average Elo rating of each team, computes the resulting Elo expectation for a "one player" vs "one player" match using that average Elo rating, and then uses that average to compute a new Elo rating for each person on the original teams. See the page about Spades card game rankings for more details.

Results if your team wins:

Results if your team loses:

There is a very detailed page about how Elo ratings are computed at the site. The calculator above can help you understand how the ratings work. For the default inputs, notice that the highest rated (1600) player gains exactly as much as the lower rated (1400) player when winning - they both get 25 points.