Board Game Arena

I am amazed at how many people do not understand the concept of leading spades.

in every trump (trick) game -- Rook, Pinochle, Euchre, Spades, etc, the primary rule is for the team with the most trump --- lead trump!

Earlier today, this was the situation.

1st guy bids 2
my p bids 2
3rd guy bids 3
I have 7 spades and i bid 7 to force a 14 bid.

The player behind me trumps diamonds.
he leads clubs, and my p gets the trick..

No matter the situation, no matter what you have bid on. Your team has bid 9 of a 14 bid. You MUST lead spades!

what does he do? He leads ..... a diamond. i am toast. my Q is trumped. and it eventually leads to our set by 1.

If your team has a 8 plus bid. or if your p has a 5-6 bid and hasnt won any of the first couple tricks, you should always be leading spades. You can always win with non-spades at a later time.

Happened again.

Someone had 8 bid.

They chose to lead non-spades after trump was broken.

The little bid got to cross trump with their loser spades and set the 8 bid.

Of course, the person broke the fundamental rule and said “i know what i am doing, i have played spades for 30 years….”

I think the issue is. Where most card games are almost exclusively about winning as many tricks as you can. This is not the case with spades.

So players coming from other trick taking games will have a good understanding of general trick taking strategy. But players who start on spades might not.

And while it's an important skill. It's needed relatively rarely compared to other games. Enough so that you can get by pretty far without a strong grasp of maximizing tricks with a mastery of trump. And you can be quite a strong player before needing to learn.

Made worse because you'll still be "winning" those hands. Even though you might miss a set, it's not always as clear that an error was even made.

Good point about players who may never played other trick games…

Also, a good point that a lot of people dont even realize what they are missing…

A lot of players really think it is 2 individual bids and not a team bid.

I often overbid to steal tricks based on what i see….if a partner just takes their 3 and stop, it will cause a lot of problems.

It is pretty much common sense that you will be lucky to win the third time a suit is led unless you are the one trumping. Opponents are also likely to have expected to win a trick with their short suit by trumping which you can protect against if you clear out spades early. To eliminate bags and encourage the suit you want led it is a good idea to discard higher bag cards (cards you wouldn't expect to get a point from) in a suit to encourage that lead in a suit, or to play low bag cards to discourage it possibly keeping low cards to pass bags to your opponents.

f your partner has depended on trumping multiple short suits when making their bid the strategy of clearing trump may backfire. It is a good strategy to discount your bid if you are very short in spades. With a long suit, and lots of spades you have a very good chance of setting when you clear out spades early. If not, a bad distribution and you may watch the other team trump your high cards and set you before you even get a chance to use your spades or length. The reason you are not allowed to lead Spades until they are broken is because of how strong this strategy is. If you take a point count like Bridge players and bid a similar number of tricks in a partnership you don't have to waste a lot of points bagging, or get stuck with a lot of bags. There are a few bridge players I enjoy being paired with because I can count on them to play a distribution very well. I am sure there are a ton of players who hate being paired with me because I collect too many bags or get set being too optimistic based on the distribution. Given the choice, I would rather blitz an opponent when I have good cards then play one 10 bid after another.

I often overbid to steal tricks based on what i see….if a partner just takes their 3 and stop, it will cause a lot of problems.

This is a huge source of frustration on anything more than a ten bid. It is easily possible if you have somehow won with a card other than a King or Ace that you have won a trick your partner expected that can be made up with intelligent play, but leading a suit a third time before clearing Trump is a killer.

Was this a situation where you were so far behind that the extra 10 points were crucial enough to justify a 14-bid? Why not just bid 6 an make it a 13-bid, which is already rare. Then you have some leeway if your partner loses a trick because of bad luck or some other reason.

[Your partner leading a side suit that has already been trumped by the opponent playing after you is a terrible play that has zero justification. Even if your partner did not want to lead spades for some reason, I cannot fathom how your partner arrived at the decision to play the diamond suit again after your left-hand opponent had already trumped it once.]

If it is the last hand of the game and you have to set to stay in the game, you should always force a 14 bid (if you cannot bag them or nil to win).
This maximizes your points and lessens your bags.

There is no prize for 2nd, so you if you need to set them to stay in the game, you bid 14.

tcarlaw wrote: ↑02 March 2026, 04:28
If your partner has depended on trumping multiple short suits when making their bid the strategy of clearing trump may backfire. It is a good strategy to discount your bid if you are very short in spades.

When you make a bid, you should always ask "can i make my bid if someone leads spades 3x in a row?" Because when you play with players like me, you are going to have your spades taken on spades leads. So you really shouldnt be counting on voids if you only have 1 or 2 spades.

There are many times that I can win 1 or 2 more tricks if i get the lead and i can trump clubs..

But here is the thing. If i bid 3 and my p bids 5.... most likely, all i am doing is trumping my partner's clubs. if you have a team bid of an 8, you are more likely going to wipe out the opponents Q2 or K3 or J10 of spades...cause your opponents are rarely going to have a lot of spades on their 3-4 bid.

This will OFTEN gain your team tricks in ways you didnt count, as your 10 now becomes 2nd or 3rd highest spade.

As mentioned, this is why you are not allowed to lead spades until they are broken. otherwise, the 8 bid would ALWAYS lead spades on first lead.

Also, i have played 1000s of game in my life. The only time leading spades on an 8+ bid has gone bad is when my partner clearly didnt have the bid they said they did. (bidding 5-6 when they had 1-2 spades).

azcats2002 wrote: ↑20 March 2026, 19:07 If it is the last hand of the game and you have to set to stay in the game, you should always force a 14 bid (if you cannot bag them or nil to win).
This maximizes your points and lessens your bags.

There is no prize for 2nd, so you if you need to set them to stay in the game, you bid 14.

Very true. I would certainly kick myself if I made it a 13 bid and my partner threw away a trick to make sure we took only our bid and not the bag for the set

Similarly, if the only possible way to win is to make a nil, then you bid nil, even if it's a 1/100 probability of making it.

I once had a partner bid nil early in the game, scores were close. My partner had QJ spades. No other spades.
We made it (I had Ace and King), but after the hand, I said to partner, "p, you really cannot bid nil there." (This was back in the days of Yahoo spades.

Next hand (I'm not making this up, I even took screen shots), my partner bids nil again. Again I have ace and King. AGAIN, my partner plays Q and J under my ace and King.

The 13th trick was taken by my nil partner... with the TEN OF SPADES. ( !?????). After my comment expressing utter disbelief, partner responded, "I thought I could make it, ok?"

Anyway, I digress.

For my curiosity, can I view the game replay you referred to:

"
Earlier today, this was the situation.

1st guy bids 2
my p bids 2
3rd guy bids 3
I have 7 spades and i bid 7 to force a 14 bid.
"

Your choice of course; I cannot view the game unless you provide the link to the table, and I understand if you don't feel comfortable doing that. I like viewing replays of interesting or unusual hands.

Apologies in advance if this is an intrusive request.

azcats2002 wrote: ↑20 March 2026, 19:13

tcarlaw wrote: ↑02 March 2026, 04:28
If your partner has depended on trumping multiple short suits when making their bid the strategy of clearing trump may backfire. It is a good strategy to discount your bid if you are very short in spades.

When you make a bid, you should always ask "can i make my bid if someone leads spades 3x in a row?" Because when you play with players like me, you are going to have your spades taken on spades leads. So you really shouldnt be counting on voids if you only have 1 or 2 spades.

There are many times that I can win 1 or 2 more tricks if i get the lead and i can trump clubs..

But here is the thing. If i bid 3 and my p bids 5.... most likely, all i am doing is trumping my partner's clubs. if you have a team bid of an 8, you are more likely going to wipe out the opponents Q2 or K3 or J10 of spades...cause your opponents are rarely going to have a lot of spades on their 3-4 bid.

This will OFTEN gain your team tricks in ways you didnt count, as your 10 now becomes 2nd or 3rd highest spade.

As mentioned, this is why you are not allowed to lead spades until they are broken. otherwise, the 8 bid would ALWAYS lead spades on first lead.

Also, i have played 1000s of game in my life. The only time leading spades on an 8+ bid has gone bad is when my partner clearly didnt have the bid they said they did. (bidding 5-6 when they had 1-2 spades).

I agree here. Situationally, I might lead a side suit if I KNOW my partner will ruff it with a small and otherwise useless spade (maybe my partner has a short spade suit and we can squeeze that extra spade trick before I run spades and take all my partner's small spades. But, as you have noted, it tuns the rusk of partner making a disastrous return play.

Also, if partner has Qxx spade and I have AKxxx, we're not necessarily gaining much by having partner ruff with a small spade. I mean, maybe it knocks out an opponent ace or king, promoting one of our face cards to a winner once the spades are gone, possibly even setting up a run in a side suit. But yes, these plays all have risks.

Generally speaking though, I want my partner with the weak hand to lead spades through my RHO and into me, rather than the other way around.

Let's not forget the other side of the equation: Partner and I have an obvious cross-ruff with weak-ish spades and few winners in the side suits. And then my partner leads spades. At that point, my partner is cleaning out our own spades that could be used for a strong cross-ruff while making the opponents' face cards in the side suits into winners. Running spades accomplishes littler unless we have one (ideally two) runnable suits in the side suits.

I mean, few people have a perfect strategy or play perfectly. I've done well with my tactics: A top 15 rating that has peaked as high as 6th or 7th, despite playing with random players rather than setting an Elo filter. I'm also a pretty good Bridge player, and compared to Bridge, Spades is a fairly simple game.

I did notice today that someone has reached 481 Elo. I'm rooting for that player to reach 500, which I've never seen on this site. (And likely is not sustainable. I've seen leaderboards which had a 407 Elo in the #1 spot.)