Brawl 4: Spades

[CuddlyCaucasian]

{ROUND 04: BRAWL}

Spades

Do you like card games? If you've browsed Mish Mash, you've probably noticed there's a bunch of them running at any one point. They might be one of the easier games to run, but they're still a huge vital part of the games that make Mish Mash great. Spades is one of those games that gets run fairly often, most recently by StrangerCoug, and while the rules are fairly simple there's much strategy involved and gameplay differs between games. So take a seat at the nearest card table, and let's begin.

GAME RULES

The game is played in teams of two, north and south playing against east and west.

BIDDING STAGE

Bidding starts with the player after the dealer. Each player, in turn, bids on the number of tricks that person thinks he or she is able to make for the partnership. You must bid on your turn; passing is not allowed. Normally, acceptable bids are between 0 and 13 tricks, but be careful—if you bid 0 tricks, you must play not to win any yourself! (This is more commonly known as Nil.) Your partnership's total number of tricks cannot exceed 13. Unless one of you bid Nil, your bid tricks and your partner's bid tricks are combined to form the partnership's goal.

If you are losing by 100 or more points, I will ask your team if you wish to make a blind bid (a bid before I give you your cards)—it must either be nil or at least as high as six. Blind nil only counts for the player who agrees to make it, but blind six or higher counts as the partnership's goal and must be made exactly. After the bidding, a blind nil bidder is allowed to trade two cards with his or her partner, who bids normally during the bidding stage.

Once all four players have bid, the play of the cards starts.

PLAY OF THE CARDS

The player after the dealer leads to the first trick and may play any card other than a spade by bolding it. Each player in turn then follows suit if they are able to; otherwise, they may play any card (even a spade). The highest spade wins; if nobody has played spades, the highest card of the suit led wins.

The second through thirteenth tricks are led by the player who won the last trick. You cannot lead spades unless they've been played already or spades are all you have. If you are clearly going to win the rest of the tricks, you may post "The rest are mine", or "TRAM" for short, to speed up the game. If everyone's in agreement, I'll calculate scores then. Otherwise, play continues until all cards are put down.

No private communication between players is allowed once the game has started.

SCORING

If you succeed in making your partnership's bid, you win 10 points for every trick bid plus 1 point for every overtrick. (Be careful with your overtricks, because each time you accumulate ten of them, you lose 100 points.) If you miss, you lose 10 points for every trick bid.

A successful nil earns you 100 points; an unsuccessful nil costs you 100 points and scores one overtrick point for each trick you took. Tricks earned by a nil bidder's partner count normally.

All blind bids count double by themselves; however, overtricks from a failed blind bid don't count.

The first partnership to earn 500 points or more or drive the other partnership to -500 points or less wins. If both partnerships have 500 points or more (or -500 points or less), the higher score wins. Tiebreaker hands will be played as needed. The team that wins will remain in the game, while the losing team will be eliminated.

[CuddlyCaucasian]

Klick/randomidget, JDGA/IPS, your choices are listed below. You have 24 hours.

• BipolarChemist & zoraster
  
• Cheery Dog & TheWayItEnds
  
• MattP & DeathRowKitty
  
• Xalxe & racefan12
  
• RedCoyote & Haschel Cedricson
  
• ForWhomTheJellyRolls & Frozen Angel
  
• Save The Dragons & mastin2
  
• StrangerCoug & Radja
  
• PrivateI & Felissan
  
• animorpherv1 & PiggyGal15 (itlepip)
  
• pickemgenius & PeregrineV

[CuddlyCaucasian]

JDGA and Iprobablysuck have been eliminated.