Your bid?
Your bid?
The partnership card game that fills American kitchen tables. You and the player across from you form a team against the other two. Everyone predicts how many tricks they will win, and the pair only scores if they take at least what they promised — take too many and the extras pile up until they cost you a hundred points.
First say how many of the thirteen tricks you expect to win. Bidding zero is a Nil: you score a hundred if you win no trick at all, and lose a hundred if you win even one.
Then play one card per trick. You must follow the suit that was led if you hold it. Spades are trumps and beat every other suit, but nobody may lead a spade until one has been played on some other suit — or until spades are all that is left in hand. The highest spade wins the trick, or if no spade was played, the highest card of the led suit. Playable cards lift and glow, so you never have to work out the rule yourself.
After thirteen tricks each side adds up. Meeting the pair's combined bid scores ten points per trick promised plus one for each extra; falling short loses ten per trick promised. Those extras are bags, and every tenth bag costs a hundred. First side to two hundred wins the game, and winning grows your streak.
Count your bid from certainties, not hopes. An ace is a trick, a king behind a small card of the same suit usually is, and every spade beyond the fourth is one more because the short suits run out. Face cards in a suit where you hold only that one card are the ones that let you down — they get beaten by an ace and then you have nothing left in the suit.
Underbidding is the more expensive mistake in this version. Falling short of a bid costs ten a trick straight away, but every trick you take beyond your bid is a bag, and ten bags wipe out a hundred points — roughly two good hands. If you are sitting on a hand worth four and you bid three to be safe, you are not being safe, you are buying a bag.
Watch what your partner bid before you decide how hard to fight for a trick. If they promised five and you promised two, the pair needs seven, and a trick they can win is worth exactly as much as one you win. Throwing a high card on a trick your partner is already winning is how pairs collect bags they never wanted.
Nil is worth a hundred but it is not a gamble to take with a queen in your hand. It works when you hold nothing above a nine and at most two spades, because a bare queen has to fall eventually and one forced trick turns plus a hundred into minus a hundred. When an opponent bids nil, lead low and often — you are trying to hand them a trick they cannot refuse.