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How to Play Spades with 3 People & Other Variants

Cutthroat, Whiz, Suicide, jokers and the minimum bid, and which of them our tables use.

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How to Play Spades with 3 People & Other Variants

To play Spades with 3 people, deal 17 cards each from a 52-card deck, leave the one spare card out of play, and have everyone bid and score alone, because there are no partners. Spades are still trump and still can't be led until broken. This three-handed game is usually called Cutthroat or 3-hand Spades. You need a real deck for it: the only game you can start on this site is the classic four-player partnership version.

3-player Spades rules (Cutthroat)

  1. Cards: one standard 52-card deck. 17 cards each makes 51, so one card sits out. Some tables take out the 2♣ before dealing; the rules on pagat.com deal 17 each and put whatever card is left out of play for that hand.
  2. First lead: in pagat's version, whoever holds the 2♣ leads it to the first trick (the 3♣ if the 2♣ is the card sitting out).
  3. Bid: each player bids how many of the 17 tricks they will take on their own.
  4. Play: as in the four-player game. Follow suit if you can, spades always trump, and no spade leads until spades are broken.
  5. Score: each player keeps their own score. Make your bid and you get 10 per trick bid; fall short and you lose 10 per trick bid. Games usually run to 300, 400 or 500.

Bags in cutthroat

This is where three-handed games differ most. Pagat's cutthroat rules knock 10 points off for every overtrick, so a bag hurts straight away. A variant it lists keeps the four-player habit instead: bags are counted, and every ten cost 100. Settle which one you're playing before the first deal.

Nil and small bids

Pagat also lists a set of optional bonus scores for cutthroat. In it a bid of nothing scores 100 if you take no tricks, and each trick you do take costs 10. Exact small bids get a bonus too (60 for a made 1, 40 for a made 2), and a bid made without looking at your cards doubles whatever it wins or loses.

How it plays

With no partner, nobody can cover a thin bid or protect your nil. Every trick you take is yours alone, and so is every bag. The two players behind tend to gang up on the leader. Honest bidding matters more here than in the partnership game. For the two-player game, see how to play Spades with 2 people.

House rules tables argue about

These turn up in four-player games too. Each one is written up on pagat.com's Spades page or in Wikipedia's Spades article, and each says what we do.

A minimum team bid of 4
Some tables make each partnership bid at least 4 tricks between them. The New York City rules on pagat set the team minimum at 4 and the maximum at 10. Our tables have no minimum: each player bids 0 to 13, and a team can bid as low as its cards say.
How much bags cost
The common rule is minus 100 for every ten bags. Wikipedia notes that shorter games to 250 sometimes use minus 50 for every five. Pagat lists tables that drop the penalty altogether, and others where every overtrick is worth minus 1 instead of plus 1. Ours: plus 1 per bag, minus 100 at ten, and bags past ten stay on the count. Our 250-point Quick Match uses the same ten-bag rule.
Jokers above the ace of spades
In the rules Dennis J. Barmore describes as widely played by African Americans, the 2♣ and 2♥ come out, two jokers go in, and the top trumps are big joker, little joker, then the 2♠. The New York City rules put the 2♦ in between as well. Wikipedia describes a version with no jokers where the 2♥ and 2♣ play as the big and little joker. Ours: no jokers, and the A♠ is the top card.
Leading spades at any time
Pagat lists tables, Barmore's among them, where spades can be led before they're broken. Ours: no spade leads until a spade has been played, unless you hold only spades.
Blind nil
A nil bid before you look at your cards, for plus or minus 200. Pagat says it's usually allowed only to a side losing by at least 100, and the bidder may swap two cards with their partner. Ours: not offered.

Bidding formats

Some variants change only how you're allowed to bid. Definitions follow Wikipedia and pagat.

FormatThe rule
WhizBid exactly the number of spades in your hand, or go nil.
MirrorBid the number of spades in your hand. Nil only if you hold none.
SuicideEvery player bids nil or at least 4. In another version, one partner on each side must bid nil.
10 for 200A team bid of 10 scores 200 if it makes exactly 10 and loses 200 otherwise.
ClassicBid what you think you'll take, 0 to 13. This is the one played here.

What our tables play

  • Four players, two partnerships, partners opposite.
  • Each player bids 1-13 or nil. Nil is plus or minus 100. No blind nil, no minimum team bid.
  • The contract is the partners' bids added together. Made pays 10 × the bid; set costs the same.
  • Overtricks are bags at +1 each; the tenth bag costs −100 and the count keeps whatever is left over.
  • First side to 500 wins (250 in Quick Match); falling to −200 loses at once.
  • No spade leads until spades are broken, unless spades are all you hold. No jokers.

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