Spades

Spades is the world's favourite partnership trick-taking card game, and this is the classic

you know: you and the player across the table are one team, spades are always trump, and

your team has to make its bid — no less, and not too much more.

♠ THE REAL RULES

• Bid once each, from 1 to 13 tricks. You and your partner add up to the team's contract.

• Nil: promise to take no tricks at all. Make it for +100, miss it for −100.

• Blind nil: when your team is 100 or more behind, your cards stay face down and you can

  bid nil without looking, for 200 points either way.

• Bags: every overtrick is a point, but every tenth bag costs 100. Win what you need.

• Breaking spades: no spade lead until a spade has been played.

• Play to 500, or to 250 for a quicker game.

♠ PICK YOUR PARTNER

Sit down with a cast of characters, each with their own skill and temper — one bids bold,

another plays it safe. Choose who partners you and how tough the two across should be.

♠ BOTS THAT PLAY LIKE PARTNERS

A nil bidder really ducks, its partner covers it, nobody steals a trick off a rival's nil,

and a team that has made its contract stops collecting bags.

♠ PLAY TOGETHER, NO INTERNET

Gather four phones around one room code over Bluetooth. Empty seats are filled by bots.

No account, no data, no Wi-Fi needed — perfect for trips and family nights.

♠ AND MORE

• Resume any game exactly where you left it: hands, bids, scores and bags.

• A round report after every hand: each trick card by card, and every team's contract,

  nils and bags.

• Stats, a daily challenge and streak, and badges for nils and blind nils.

• Several card decks and backs, sound, your own name, and 17 languages.

Everything runs on your phone: no account, no internet, no ads. From the makers of "family card games"  with over 230,000 players.