Is there a more toxic game than Spades?

[PaigeBueckers]

I wanted to chime in and say everything azcats wrote is really good advice. They are one of the best players on here, but if you are looking for a starting point in spades strategy, what they wrote is a great place to start. Yes, losing 100 points when you bag out seems like a lot at the time. But in 90% of games, both teams will bag out once, and the team who gets more sets will probably finish with 15-19 bags, and the other team with 11-12 bags. Sometimes the cards just aren’t in your favor, but the vast majority of the time, the team who gets more sets wins.

I agree with your comments regarding unsolicited advice when it comes to most things in life, like talking to a friend, significant other, stranger, etc. And in spades, if you are critiquing or providing strategy tips after rounds to the opponent, you are giving advice to someone whose behavior/play doesn’t impact you, and I would agree that is toxic.

But spades is a team game, and the decisions of your partner have a direct impact on you. If the advice you are giving to your partner is, in fact, constructive and correct advice, and your partner is ignoring it or feeling attacked by it, the partner is the toxic one. Because they are willfully choosing to cause harm to someone else by not correcting bad behavior. And if someone does not want advice of any kind, then I think it is unfair to play ranked team games (especially arena games).

To Merlin

Bags are rarely bad. It is rare for 1 team to lose simply cause they had 10 bags.

More likely it is cards or sets.

So if u dont try for sets you are allowing luck to dictate wins and losses.

Here is the math most dont understand.

19 bags is -81 pts. -100 +19

If u set a 4 bid, they dont gain 40 and lose 40. -80 pts.

Thus u can go for sets all day long and will most likely win if u can get 1 or 2 sets.

10 bids…u avoid tricks. Take ur ps winners. Duck under opps winners. Until about 6 cards left. Then decide if u need to take.

11 bids or higher. U just go for the set.

Why to set 11 bids? If u are going for set, you wont get set. Simple as that. Most 11 bids the bags can be split. If u get the set u have won a huge advantage.

When u play, play for ur ps best interest. That will go a long way.

I just want you to know I am not ignoring you. I will just be r reading this a few times to try to undrstand. but it all sounds so foreighn to me at the moment and I think at this point i need to go spend more time on some youtube tutorials. I would need too many clarifying questions to understand. And you have just taken more than enough time breaking this down for me. It has given me points to go expand my search on. and to keep in mind as i observe other games and apply it. Math is also not my strong suit by far. I thougt th bags, you wanted to avoid those like the plague since it docs so much each 10th (i thought, confused on thee 19). Thank you so so much for your time.

[FrankJones]

@merlin-et:

Euchre and Spades are not analogous. A spades hand has 13 total tricks to be taken. S0, a 10-bid (meaning the total combined bid is an "underbid" hand ion which 3 extra tricks will be taken, called "bags") means it's unlikely one team will take enough tricks to stop the other from making the bid.

Example: Both teams bid 5. it's possible for both teams to make their 5 tricks (gaining 50 points each), and neither team wants to take any of the extra 3 tricks, because every time you take a cumulative 10 extra tricks (bags), you lose 100 points.

a "12-bid" hand (example: One team bids 7, one team bids 5) is a highly competitive hand, where both teams should be trying to take every trick, aiming to "Set" the other team. If you succeed, the other team is minus (10 * bid), meaning the other team might be minus 50 or minus 70 instead of gaining that same number of points. Huge swing, usually game winning. And, if you try to "set" the other team in a 12 bid and fail, you'll take at most 1 bag.

The 11-bids are trickier. Those are the nuts and bolts of spades, and where "strong" players separate themselves from "expert" players. In an 11 bid, if you throw away tricks early, you might:

1) Miss out on a chance to set the opponents, or
2) Get your own bid set

either of which is a disaster.

That said, in an 11-bid, if you always blindly throw away tricks early, you'll miss out on some sets and maybe get set occasionally, BUT, if you blindly take every trick possible, you'll needlessly take bags in hands in which you have close to zero percent chance of setting the opponents.

So, in an 11 bid, strategy is key. It requires paying attention to each person's bid, each card played by each player, opponent and partner tendencies, etc.

A team that ALWAYS goes for the set in an 11 bid will do worse in the long run versus a team that carefully avoids needless bags in hands in which a set is literally impossible.

Does that help?

[PaigeBueckers]

But expert players will almost always underbid by 0.5-1 tricks, because you never know when a distribution might put you in a situation where say you have 2, King, Ace of clubs (seems like a guaranteed two tricks, right?), if you bid that suit as 2 tricks, and don't have a buffer in your total bid, and an opponent happens to be void in clubs from the start, your team is now in a 2 trick hole and will almost certainly be set. On 11 bids you should aim to take every trick you can until it is guaranteed you will not be able to set, which is usually the last 4 or so hands of a round. So being aware of what cards have been played, if your partner took any tricks they didn't bid (like queens or jacks winning mid round), will give you an idea of if the set is still in play late and your partner still has the ability to win more tricks.

I see so often when a partner has like 2, 9, queen in a suit on an 11 bid. Opponent takes the ace of that suit and my partner drops their 2, I take with my king and I see my partner drops a queen under my king. That tells me my partner is void in that suit now or is pretending to be and has the jack. I play a 3 of that suit and then I see my partners 9 lose to an opponents 10 or Jack. Those early round throwaways cost SO many 11 bid sets to be missed.

@merlin-et:

Euchre and Spades are not analogous. A spades hand has 13 total tricks to be taken. S0, a 10-bid (meaning the total combined bid is an "underbid" hand ion which 3 extra tricks will be taken, called "bags") means it's unlikely one team will take enough tricks to stop the other from making the bid.

Example: Both teams bid 5. it's possible for both teams to make their 5 tricks (gaining 50 points each), and neither team wants to take any of the extra 3 tricks, because every time you take a cumulative 10 extra tricks (bags), you lose 100 points.

a "12-bid" hand (example: One team bids 7, one team bids 5) is a highly competitive hand, where both teams should be trying to take every trick, aiming to "Set" the other team. If you succeed, the other team is minus (10 * bid), meaning the other team might be minus 50 or minus 70 instead of gaining that same number of points. Huge swing, usually game winning. And, if you try to "set" the other team in a 12 bid and fail, you'll take at most 1 bag.

The 11-bids are trickier. Those are the nuts and bolts of spades, and where "strong" players separate themselves from "expert" players. In an 11 bid, if you throw away tricks early, you might:

1) Miss out on a chance to set the opponents, or
2) Get your own bid set

either of which is a disaster.

That said, in an 11-bid, if you always blindly throw away tricks early, you'll miss out on some sets and maybe get set occasionally, BUT, if you blindly take every trick possible, you'll needlessly take bags in hands in which you have close to zero percent chance of setting the opponents.

So, in an 11 bid, strategy is key. It requires paying attention to each person's bid, each card played by each player, opponent and partner tendencies, etc.

A team that ALWAYS goes for the set in an 11 bid will do worse in the long run versus a team that carefully avoids needless bags in hands in which a set is literally impossible.

Does that help?

[FrankJones]

um.

Okay, yeah, sometimes you have AKx in clubs and an opponent is void. So, we just always underbid? We guard against the 1% probability that the other 10 clubs are distributed 5-5-0? or 4-6-0? AND the person with 0 is one of the opponents and not our partner? How often does that happen? Seriously?

Sure, If I have 3-maybe-4, I'm bidding 3 most of the time. But I'm not going to make a bad underbid based on an unlikely ghost around every corner (an opponent void in a suit that I only have 3 cards in). Not bidding likely tricks means gaining fewer points and taking more bags. ANd if anyone thinks that doesn't matter, well... we're all entitled to opinions.

Multiple people in this thread are trying to simplify this game to "in an 11 bid take every possible trick just in case".

Well, that's an oversimplification of the game and a bit of an insult to the nuances of the game, and I hope I never get anyone like that as a partner. Based on what some people have said in this thread the game simplifies to: "Always underbid, then always take every trick." Okay, so a game of pure luck?? really?

This game is optimized by taking in all the available information and making the best decisions possible. Always going for the set in an 11 bid, taking every trick (and bag), is not correct, in my opinion. Always bagging in an 11 bid is also not correct.

EVALUATE AND RE-EVALUATE EVERY TIME A CARD IS PLAYED.

Am I wrong? Well, if so, I'd like to actually hear it from someone who has a better track record than I do at this game. Because otherwise, it's just equally experienced/rated players offering different opinions.

So, to the people saying I'm wrong, I say this:

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say it's not how I play, and my way seems to work out just as well as yours. Furthermore, if your way is superior to mine, well, show it. Put your theory into action and shoot past 400 Elo. In the meantime, while we're all similarly rated, let's stop telling one another that our way is best and other people are wrong. Because, that gets tiresome.

[Tuut Tuut tis Luut]

did you check out the podcast i recommended? if not, then seems wilful/chosen ignorance then...

its not a communication issue here. intent doesnt negate impact. and unsolicited advice is still advice given without consent. and just because group think and cultural practices minimise impacts based on "intentions" systemically all around us does not change the facts behind the behaviours. again, many different psychology articles on these themes. Just because you mean well doesnt mean other people should be expected to just take what you offer. Thats all around toxic behaviours/mannerisms and protects both intentional as well as unintentional harmful/abusive people. and we have a whole lot of people, especially through these lobbies that feel entitled to push their "wisdoms" onto people. look how quick you are/were to defend this yourself. . . are you truly even listening to understand? or just to respond, justify and deflect? your dodged pretty much everything i said under"misunderstanding"/ "miscommunication". but are you open to the potential you might actually be wrong and may need to further educate yourself so you're not enabling the toxic environments/issues we are speaking on? why is it so much easier to defend "unsolicited advice" given rather than just pause and ask for consent first before sharing? why is the mental load expected of the receivers instead when all we wanted to do was to be able to play a game. if we have questions, its up to us to ask at a pace comfortable for us. if we arent asking, no one should be entitled to force feed information. And i don't understand why people have this mentality and defensiveness. its basic boundaries every human has a right to. why is the idea of "consent" only appicable to physical interations but people dont think twice about mental safety/boundaries. perhaps even look up the BITE model psychological tool.... if people are giving advice unsolicited: that stems from control regardless of intent. also if you take the time to look up articles on psychology aroud unsolicited advice, theres some that will break down some of the unintentional impacts/feelings where it has the total opposite effect than intended/anticipated.
Instead of just defending/justifying yourself or trying to seperate yourself from the more obviously toxic ones as i had described, perhaps sit with it a bit and see the relating coexisting truths and discomforts of them andf figure out where on the spectrum you want to stay sitting on these themes. not all toxic is obvious nor intentional.
But dry bones of "unsolicited" is you are using your body/words to force your ideologies onto another human and expecting them to just be ok with it and remain polite. not really thinking about how common it is for people to dish it left right and center. its not just one of you, its many. and id be considered rude for not followinng and for standing up for myself. as you also just proved, in putting me in a position where i had to overexplain the situation and defend myself because i am not open to receive. you literally turned around and acused me of being the toxic one for not beinng willing to receive. my words are about standing up for me and my body and other players in similar circumstances as me. i shared my truth and experience, and you shot me down based on your own narratives and experiences and literally hypothetical assumptions. combating my reality with your ideologies. My body, my mind, my right to defend. But you still seem stubbornly entitled to the idea of "not all unsolicited advice is bad" like its not still literally forced on us WITHOUT CONSENT..... and we are literally supposed to just like it long as you force it on us "respectfully".... would you apply the same logic you have about words/unsolicited advice to any kind of physical interaction forced on someone?? again, someone just here to play a game and have fun. not sure i mentioned it before, but Gabor Mate (cant get the right "E" with the accent on this keyboard) has a talk on youtube in an interview titled "we live in a toxic culture" part 1 of 5. highly recommend this playlist too and pretty much anything by him. But really highlights the invisible impacts a lot of normalized behaviours have on our bodies and the impact of cultural factors we really need to learn to shift..

you know, I havent been able to bring myself to come try spades again, not only because of the experiences I had in that game, but the defensiveness in this forum and the complicitness shown within the community in the bystander behaviours/enablement all around it too. despite still wanting to come learn and increase my games list on this site. but unless i have people i know already, i just really dont feel comfortable or safe to because i dont want to be subected to that kind of lobby again. or those kind of people where no one really backs up those of us who speak up for ourselves....

If there is anyone who wouldnt mind joining me in a lobby sometime so i can learn handson (I learn best by trial and error and feeling out mechanics, and asking questions as they become relevant/needed) without getting upset with me for the mistakes i am likely to make, please shoot me a message and let me know. chances of me finding local players are slim to none. I'm still hoping i might find those who were in my first lobby again. I amsuper grateful I started with them and had a positive experience and welcoming community that night.

firstly unsolicited advice is toxic, and falls under "invalidating statements". you cant really "disagree" with fact. and i trust my educated opinion on this one.

I feel like there might be some miscommunication here about what unsolicited advice means exactly. English isn't my native language so that might be part of the problem.

I read unsolicited to simply mean not asked for (in advance). Which isn't necessarily the same as being unwanted.

Of course if someone continues to comment, after being told you don't appreciate it. As you describe in your other comment. That's obviously rude and toxic. But I would classify that as more than just unsolicited.

Similarly, when I say advice. That means actually helpful tips and explanations. Rude comments and/or comments that merely point out errors without trying to be helpful or constructive. Are definitely toxic, but are also not advice.

So what I mean by unsolicited advice, is a genuine attempt at giving a tip, without insulting or being rude about it. And given without being asked for, but not despite being told it's unwanted.

I hope that clears up my position. I realize my earlier comment wasn't clear and reads fairly hostile in hindsight.

Merlin. First of all, what you're doing is taking a very nuanced and situational topic. And applying it aggressively and universally in an extremely black and white fashion.

It's fine to say unsolicited advice can be rude, even when not intended as such. But a blanket definition of toxic and even abusive is just extreme, and frankly very disrespectful towards the people you're trying to call out. As well as to people dealing with genuine emotional abuse in real life.

We're not talking about people being systematically invalidating, wether intentionally or not, in their relationships. We're talking about discussing gameplay and strategy during card games, a setting where it's generally expected and normal.

So I understand this might be a sensitive issue for you personally. But you must realize that while people can make well intentioned statements that come across as rude. Calling those people TOXIc for doing so is also very rude.

Even if we agree on unsolicited advice being rude. The way that you're very aggressively attacking people doing so. Making grand and negative statements about their character. And even comparing them to emotional abusers. For something that's well intentioned is incredibly rude and toxic by any definition.

The world is not black and white. And citing out of context opinion pieces from psych magazines do not give you a pass to actively insult people on an online forum.

[FrankJones]

Spades is a team game, which can lead to some difficulties with regard to what is considered proper etiquette. The best we can ask for is that our teammates makes an effort to play optimally. As seen in this thread though, not everyone agrees on what that means. As we have seen, there can be spirited debate amongst 300+ Elo players (in a game in which the Top Elos top out around 400).

In a team game, I would think it's reasonable to politely and tactfully give advice or even just clarify something to a teammate after a hand. (Not during the hand, which is never appropriate).

If a player is unwilling to even be subjected to polite, tactful advice, then perhaps a collaborative team game like Spade is the wrong game to be playing. I mean, Spades is a simplified version of Bridge, in which partnership communication is crucial and expected. It would actually be improper etiquette for one player to say to a partner, "just be quiet and leave me alone, I'm not interested in communicating with you or to you."

[Pickle Slicer]

Very true, no reason for it, but it since it is very easy to learn how to play spades it seems to get flooded with a large amount low IQ players. Nothing wrong with that, but realize along with the many players in spades with low level game skill comes a lot of immaturity when they think they are better than the others in the game. You can see this with the long amount of time they take to play a card. In a live game a card is played within 2 seconds. On here rarely less than 30 seconds and often 45 seconds or more which is quite a long time for a card game. Thus the games that are highly detailed to learn and play don't have this drama. I was in a game and the players spent more time talking meaningless nonsense than playing a card.

the SOLUTION would be to just make a simple option of allowing no more than 20-30 seconds to play a card, and if the player takes longer, have the computer play a card automatically. Then those that actually want to have fun playing a higher level of cards can still play without being tied down to an hour or more of drama. LIKEWISE, those that just want the drama could choose to join games with the typical 2 minute per trick play.

[DazaB]

the SOLUTION would be to just make a simple option of allowing no more than 20-30 seconds to play a card, and if the player takes longer, have the computer play a card automatically. Then those that actually want to have fun playing a higher level of cards can still play without being tied down to an hour or more of drama. LIKEWISE, those that just want the drama could choose to join games with the typical 2 minute per trick play.

The current settings in arena allow for 9 seconds per card, albeit with a 90-120 second buffer; so your suggestion would slow games down.

[Pickle Slicer]

The current settings in arena allow for 9 seconds per card, albeit with a 90-120 second buffer; so your suggestion would slow games down.

You wasted more than 9 seconds to say something that is not relevant to the topic and just out of the blue. The time for fast is 1:24. The time for slow is 2:03. The fast needs to be a total of less that 30. If you're going to change the topic with semantics card, play that with yourself. I'm referring to real time. But yes, real time is too long to play a card as the TOPIC is WHY spades gets toxic.

That's that. Sorry you didn't understand, but I will tell you it took me a second to figure out what the heck you were talking about. Total time not fractured time.

[DazaB]

The current settings in arena allow for 9 seconds per card, albeit with a 90-120 second buffer; so your suggestion would slow games down.

You wasted more than 9 seconds to say something that is not relevant to the topic and just out of the blue. The time for fast is 1:24. The time for slow is 2:03. The fast needs to be a total of less that 30. If you're going to change the topic with semantics card, play that with yourself. I'm referring to real time. But yes, real time is too long to play a card as the TOPIC is WHY spades gets toxic.

That's that. Sorry you didn't understand, but I will tell you it took me a second to figure out what the heck you were talking about. Total time not fractured time.

And you wasted probably 60 seconds replying....

No, I don't understand what you're talking about, you're right.

I do like the fact that you changed the topic to length of games and then accused me of changing the topic when I replied though.

The time for fast games is not 1:24 per turn, it's 9 seconds per turn. If you want to change that to 20-30 seconds per turn, games will be slower.

I'm sorry that you don't understand that, but probably best to figure out what the heck you are talking about yourself before replying.

toxic, eh?