Spades

The trick — four cards, face up

Lead goes to the dealer's left; follow suit if you hold it. Highest spade takes it, else highest of the led suit.

drawn from 3 rules

• Card ranking

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  In every suit, cards rank 2 low up through 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace high. Any spade beats any card of any other suit, no matter how small the spade or how large the other card. Between two spades, the higher spade wins.

• Playing a trick

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  The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick. Everyone else, going left, must play a card of the suit that was led if they hold one. If you're out of that suit, play anything — including a spade, which is how you take a trick you had no business taking. The highest spade played wins the trick. If no spade was played, the highest card of the led suit wins. The winner gathers the four cards face down in front of their side and leads the next trick. Keep your side's won tricks in a stack somebody can count, because somebody will.

• Breaking spades

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  You may not lead a spade until spades have been broken — until someone has played a spade on a trick led in another suit. The one exception is a player holding nothing but spades, who has no choice and leads whatever they've got. After the first spade hits the table, spades may be led freely for the rest of the hand.