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The Ten Truths of Spades

John (Galt) Strichman is the author of How NOT to Lose at Spades, and can be reached at questions@spadesbook.com.

Hi to all of my GamingPeak friends, and hopefully friends to be.

Shutter has very graciously invited me to contribute feature articles for the GP Spading community, and I have decided to take him up on his offer. This was not an easy decision, however, and here is why.

I have taken on similar responsibility in the past when I wrote columns for what was the largest Spade Club in The Zone, and regularly contributed articles for Joe Andrews’ column there as well. I found it to be a much more demanding, time consuming, and challenging task than I would have imagined. I was always impressed with Joe’s ability to crank them out month after month and year after year.

On the other hand, the game of Spades has been amazingly good to me. As I daily look across the desk here at my wife, whom I met only because she ordered a copy of my book, and reflect upon the usually pleasant aggravation delivered by my two resulting adopted daughters, I am continually reminded that I can never give back to the game as much as it has given to me. Consequently, Shutter’s invitation represents an offer which I can only accept with great appreciation and a full understanding of its associated responsibilities.

Shutter and the gang have done an amazing job here. Imagine, if you will, that you were tasked with starting up a game site from scratch. This game site would be frequented by players, the majority of whom had lost their favorite place to play, most of whom came full of expectations, and a significant minority of whom came with very little patience… and your job was to make them all happy, and at no cost to them.

No problem right? Just give me a month or two to get things buttoned up.

The community, including myself, owes Shutter and his dedicated crew a very big thank you. So, to all of you involved I hereby publicly offer my thanks. I have had lots of fun playing here, made lots of great new friends, and look forward to having lots more fun in the future.

In that respect, I would like to do my part to help with the growth and future of Gaming Peak. Most importantly, I would like to help players have the most fun possible playing Spades here, and that brings us to the real crux of the matter, and the reason for these articles.

I cannot tell you how often I have heard a player say something like “I don’t need to learn about the game, I play just for fun”. That is all well and good except for one thing. When playing Spades, it is more fun to win on a consistent basis than to lose on a consistent basis. If you really want to have the most fun that you possibly can playing Spades, this will happen only if you have the best understanding of the game that you can. It is that simple.

This is true of all areas of recreation. When you go bowling would you be just as happy throwing gutter balls as throwing strikes… water skiing just as happy falling down every few hundred yards as making beautiful slalom turns… playing Bejeweled or Tetris getting a low score as a high score? Of course not.

There is one significant aspect of online Spading which comes into play here, and makes the above even more salient. Most online Spaders spend many hundreds, IF NOT OVER 1,000 hours per year playing Spades. Think about that for a minute before proceeding.

If you are going to spend that much time participating in a form of competition, is it not worth a few hours spread across the year devoted to learning about, experimenting with, and improving at that competition, and thereby maximizing the amount of fun that you (and your pard who deserves your very best efforts) get out of all of those other hours spent playing? This time the answer is… Of course yes.

I also can’t tell you how often I have received a communication from one of my students saying something like “It sure is more fun to win with your brain than to win with your cards”, and that sure is true.

So, if you think that you might want to try maximizing the amount of fun that you derive from the game, why don’t you give me a shot for a while and see what happens.

It is hard to produce material that is of interest to beginner, intermediate, and advanced players at the same time. What I will be doing with these articles is writing them for whom I would consider to be the “average” player playing here at Gaming Peak. This would include most players in the social rooms and the majority of players in the league rooms.

Some columns will deal with more advanced topics than others, but all will deal with topics which should be of benefit to almost all players in the community. Also, the articles will be as nontechnical in nature as possible. Humor and common sense can frequently teach just as well, or even better than, statistics and technical jargon.

Please feel free to contact me and tell me what you would like to see covered in the columns. An author should write for his readers and not for himself.

I am going to finish off this first one by mentioning what I consider to be the Ten Truths of Spades. Many future articles will be written around these concepts.

In no particular order, here are the truths that I would like you to think about until we meet again.

Ten Truths of Spades

The average Spades player is concerned way too much with avoiding taking bags, and not concerned nearly enough with setting or getting set.
Bidding your hand is about the worst approach that you can take when playing Spades. Players who always “bid their hands” will lose on a consistent basis to players who do not.
A common belief is that the outcome of Spades games is determined primarily by luck. This is not true. Some games are determined by luck, but in the long run the more skilled team will always come out ahead of the less skilled team.
More bidding mistakes are made on the last hand of Spades games than at any other time, and tons of games are lost as a result of these mistakes. Often the mistake is made by the player bidding last, but, surprisingly to many, most often the mistake is made by the player bidding in third position.
Spades is a game of risk/reward more than it is a game of cards.
The biggest factor holding back Spaders is ego. I have often jokingly stated that “95% of players think that they are in the top 5%”. This is obviously a stretch, but not having an open mind to new or different ideas tends to hold back many Spaders from moving to higher levels of play. This also includes the misconception that having played for a long time translates into skill. More often than not, having played for 10, 15, or 25 years simply translates into having had bad habits deeply woven into a player’s fabric.
Many players think that Spades is a very simple game. This stems from the fact that just about anybody can learn to play the game in five minutes. Simple rules can make for a simple game, but do not necessarily do so. Spades is far from simple. Failure to accept and investigate its complexities leads to needless loss after needless loss.
Related to this is that players will often, after having lost a game, not know the real reason why they lost. It will, more often than not, relate to some fundamental error or errors that go completely unrecognized. The resulting inability to learn from these mistakes represents a serious impediment to improved play.
Everything is situational. Players who look for hard and fast rules will never reach their true potential. This includes the use of bidding systems. There is no bidding system that can lead one to the Promised Land of Spades.
Spades is a game of controlling, and taking advantage of, mistakes. If your team makes fewer and less costly mistakes than its opponents, it will be a winning team. That is why my book is called How NOT to Lose at Spades. It is not about playing not to lose, which could connote a very passive approach; it is simply about not losing.

Please give these ideas some thought, and let me leave you with one last question.

One Last Question

Have you ever intentionally (in an effort to win a game) bid Nil while holding the Ace of Spades? If your answer is no, you definitely will benefit from following these articles in the months to come.

Very best of luck, and Happy Spading!

Galt