Set your opponents in Spades when the bid is high

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

In Spades, if your team takes enough tricks that the opponents can't make their bid, you have "set" them. You can also "set" a nil bid by playing your cards right. On this page, though, I'm talking about setting a bid that isn't zero.

If the bids add up to more than 13, you must aim to set your opponents, since one side or the other is bound to get set. For example, if your team bids 3 and the opponents bid 11, the total is 14. Just by taking your 3 tricks, you make the opponents lose 110 points.

If the total bid is 13, you should also try to take as many tricks as you can. Your opponents will almost certainly be doing the same. Taking just one extra trick is enough to do a lot of damage to the opponents.

The video clip below shows an example of this. The total bid is 13. I was a little daring with my bid of 3, but I managed to take all 3 tricks. My partner wasn't so lucky, and we lost 60 points.

The video shows that my partner counted on the Ace and King of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs. He's a bit "long" in clubs and hearts, so counting on all of those to take a trick was risky. He also has only one trump, the 2 of Spades. With 12 non-trump cards, he will almost certainly never get a chance to trump a trick.

You could put all the blame on my partner Robby for our set, but I don't. It's my fault too. I was the last to bid. I knew that pushing the bid to 13 would put us at risk of getting set. I did take all the tricks I counted on, but my hand wasn't very strong. If I had been a little more careful with my bid, things would have gone differently. We were both a little too ambitious, and that caused the set.