Classic
To 500, bags on, nil
The standard game. Bags on with the ten-for-100 penalty, nil allowed, no jokers, no board, no renege calling.
All lessons
Table Talk 101 · Reference
House rules, explained.
Every table plays a little different. These are the rules Table Talk Spades lets your table set, what each one means, the choices the app gives you, and which preset switches it on. The active rules show in the lobby and in the game header, so nobody gets to say they did not know.
Scoring
Score limit
The first team to reach the limit wins the game. Each hand adds or subtracts points from a running team score, so the limit sets how long a game runs.
500 is the classic length. 250 is a lunch-break game. 750 is a long night, and bags matter more the longer you play.
Watch the lesson: What Is Spades?Scoring
Bags
Every book your team wins over its bid is a bag, worth one point. Collect enough bags and the table takes points back and your count starts over.
Bags turn greed into a liability. A team that keeps taking books it did not bid for will eventually pay for it, which is why good players let cheap books go.
Watch the lesson: What Are Bags?Bidding
Nil
A bid to win zero books for the whole hand while your partner plays the team's regular bid. Make it and the team scores 100. Take a single book and the team loses 100.
Nil is the swing bid. It can rescue a team that is behind and it can bury one that reads its hand wrong.
Watch the lesson: What Is Nil?Bidding
Blind nil
Nil declared before you look at your cards. Double the stakes: make it for 200, miss it for minus 200.
Most houses only allow it when a team is far enough behind that the gamble is justified. Some allow it any time.
Watch the lesson: What Is Blind Nil?Scoring
Boston
Running a Boston means one team takes all thirteen books in a hand. The app lets your table decide what that is worth.
At some tables it is a bragging right and nothing more. At others it ends the game on the spot.
Watch the lesson: Set House RulesBidding
Board
The least a team is allowed to bid together. If both partners' regular bids add up to less than board, the bid is not accepted.
Board stops two partners from hiding behind tiny bids and bagging the other team. It keeps every hand honest.
Watch the lesson: What Does “Board” Mean?The deck
Jokers
Two jokers join the deck as the two highest spades, big joker above little joker, both above the ace of spades. To keep the deck at 52 cards, the two of clubs and the two of hearts come out.
Jokers change what a sure book looks like. An ace of spades is no longer the top card, and a player holding a joker knows it will win the moment it is played.
Watch the lesson: Set House RulesThe deck
Deuces high
Promotes the twos. With all twos high, each two is the top card of its own suit and the two of spades tops the spades. With the diamond and spade twos elevated, those two cards count as spades and rank above the ace of spades, in whichever order the table chooses.
This is the rule most often described as how we play at our house. The order of the two of diamonds and the two of spades is a real argument, which is why the app offers both.
Watch the lesson: Set House RulesBidding
First hand bids itself
When on, the opening hand has no bidding at all. Play starts straight from the deal and each team scores ten points for every book it takes.
A warm-up hand lets everybody see the table before anyone has to make a promise.
Watch the lesson: What Is Bidding?Bidding
Team bidding
How partners' bids are handled. Bidding separately, your partner's bid stays hidden until you have both bid, so you cannot adjust to it. Bidding together, the team settles one combined number.
Hidden bids reward reading your own hand. Combined bids reward table talk, and some houses consider that the whole point.
Watch the lesson: What Is Bidding?Fair play
Renege calling
A renege is playing off suit when you could have followed. With renege calling on, the app lets a player throw off, and the other team can call it during the hand. A right call costs the reneging team three books. A wrong call is recorded against the caller. Reneges nobody calls expire when the hand ends.
At most tables reneging is simply not allowed and the app enforces that. Turning calling on makes catching it part of the game, the way it is at a real table.
Watch the lesson: What Is Reneging?Shortcuts
The presets
A preset is a whole table set up in one tap. Pick the one closest to how your house plays, or pick Custom and set every rule above yourself.
Jokers & Deuces
Jokers, 2 of spades then 2 of diamonds, bids itself
The deck most hosts rebuild by hand: jokers in, the spade and diamond twos elevated, first hand bids itself, teams bid together, board 4, bags on.
Family Rules
To 500, no bags, jokers, bids itself
Jokers in with the diamond two above the spade two, first hand bids itself, teams bid together, board 4, Boston pays a bonus, and no bags at all.
Quick Game
To 250, penalty at 5 bags
Half the distance with the bag penalty scaled to match: five bags cost 50, so the pressure stays proportional.
No Mercy
Board 5, renege, blind nil
Board at 5, renege calling on, blind nil allowed any time, and a Boston wins the game outright.
Custom
Set your own
Every rule on this page, set one at a time. Returning hosts can save their custom setup as the default for their next table.