Disaster: The Consequences of Underbidding in Spades

When learning to play the game of Spades, developing your bidding strategy is easily one of the most important factors. After all, the scoring of each hand is directly linked to the bidding process. Therefore, understanding the concept of underbidding and the consequences that it brings is essential.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the bidding process, the concept of underbidding, and how to avoid sabotaging your game by bidding too low. Let’s get started.

Understanding the bidding process

Before analyzing the reasons to avoid excessive underbidding, you must first define the term. To do that, it is important to understand how bidding works.

Whether it’s standard Spades or a themed version like Christmas Spades, each hand is split into 13 tricks because each of the four players gets 13 cards, making a total of 52. A bid is essentially a wager on how many tricks the player thinks they will win in the hand. With this in mind, a bid can be anywhere between 0 (nil) and 13.

However, the game is played in pairs with each player making their bids in a clockwise fashion. So, if your partner bids 3, the maximum bid you could make is 10.

How does scoring work in Spades?

The aim of the game is for each team to meet their combined bid by winning at least that number of tricks. If you bid 4 and your partner bids 3, it doesn’t matter if one of you wins 5 tricks and the other wins 2. As long as your partnership hits seven, you have succeeded in the hand.

When the team wins their bid, they get 10 points for each trick up to the value of the bid plus 1 extra point (a bag) for each additional trick won. If you bid 6 and get 6 tricks, the team wins 60 points. If it hits 8 tricks from the same bid, the score is 62 including the 2 bags.

However, if a team loses their bid, they receive -10 points for each trick they bid, regardless of how many tricks they fall short by. So, if you bid for 8 tricks, you’ll get -80 points whether you win 0 tricks or 7.

For a nil bid, a player wins 100 points if successful but loses 100 points if they take a single trick in the hand.

Overbidding Vs underbidding

The perfect bid for any given hand is the exact number of tricks you will win as a team. So, if you win 8 of the 13 tricks between you, a team bid of 8 is the sweet spot.

Understanding the two opposing terms of “overbidding” and “underbidding” is pretty simple. The former is when the value of your bid exceeds the number of tricks you subsequently take whereas the latter is when the value of your bid is lower than the number of tricks you eventually take during the hand.

When entering the bidding process, particularly as a new player, underbidding is often seen as the better option. It is the more conservative approach and allows you to avoid picking up minus points as quickly as an aggressive overbidder might encounter. In fact, avoiding overbidding is the very first tip in our guide to win more at Spades.

In other words, it’s probably better to bid conservatively, especially when caught between two minds. If you think that you will take either 5 or 6 tricks in the hand, for example, it’s best to post a bid of 5. This is because the consequences of scoring 5 after bidding 6 are (usually) more severe than scoring 6 following a bid of 5.

So, if conservative bidding is the better approach, wouldn’t it be better just to bid 1 on every hand? Absolutely not…

The consequences of underbidding in Spades

As already stated, the positives of underbidding are that you avoid picking up minus points (bid value x 10) for failing to meet the bid while also picking up the plus points (bid value x 10). However, the consequences of underbidding in Spades should not be ignored as they can spell disaster for your strategy, especially if you become guilty of serial underbidding.

After underbidding in Spades, you will inevitably start to collect bags. While the extra one point at the end of a hand may seem like a positive, it has no impact on building a score. That’s because the target is to hit a score of 500 as a team. As such, the first nine bags will not influence whether you win or lose - and the tenth bag is where the consequences of underbidding become most noticeable.

Once you accumulate 10 bags over the course of a game, your team will be hit with a 100-point penalty. So, if you have 79 points (70 + 9 bags) and then land 6 tricks in the next hand following a bid of 4, your score becomes 21 (79 + 42 - 100). It should be noted that in this scenario, you also start the next hand with 1 bag as this is the carryover from the 11 you had accumulated.

Losing 100 points can quickly transform the dynamic of a Spades match. Some other points to consider about the consequences of underbidding include;

• As well as stopping you from reaching the 500-point milestone, the minus points could push your team beyond the -200 point mark, which also ends the game and hands victory to your opponents.
• Underbidding means you are missing out on points, thus giving your opponents an opportunity to capitalize. For example, if you bid 3 but win 10 tricks, you’ve essentially missed out on 70 points because the 7 bags won’t help you reach 500 anyway.
• When falling beyond your opponents due to underbidding, you may be tempted to bid more aggressively in desperation. In this case, overbidding becomes a far more likely outcome, thus making it even harder to win.

In addition to negatively impacting your hopes of winning, underbidding may unnecessarily prolong a game that you should have won far sooner. Of course, each additional hand gives your opponents the opportunity to turn the situation around.

How to avoid the threat of underbidding

Generally speaking, most new players will benefit from edging towards underbidding rather than overbidding. However, it’s still important to avoid excessive underbidding within your strategy. Here are some simple steps to avoid disaster:

Step 1: Avoid nil bidding until confident

Firstly, as a beginner, it’s probably best to avoid nil bidding until you are a more experienced player. Otherwise, you will need to play the right card for all 13 tricks within the hand - whether playing a standard deck or with Jokers included. A single mistake would land you a score of minus 100 points.

Step 2: Only underbid by a small amount

If you are geared towards underbidding rather than overbidding, it’s important to still bid close to the anticipated value of your hand. Picking up a bag and missing out on 10 points here and there isn’t likely to disrupt your strategy. So, a bid of 6 that eventually leads to 7 tricks won isn’t a major issue. Conversely, though, picking up 5 bags and missing out on 50 points due to a bid of just 2 on that same hand could be catastrophic.

Step 3: Bid high on 8 or 9 bags

Avoiding the 100-point penalty is essential for any team at every stage of the game. If you have picked up eight or nine bags over the course of a game, you will want to switch to an overbidding strategy as a way to avoid reaching 10 bags. Alternatively, if you have amassed five or more bags in the first few hands, it may be wise to start lowering your bids.

Step 4: Work as a team

Perhaps most importantly, you need to read your partner. If they are guilty of underbidding on most hands, you must adopt a more aggressive approach. Otherwise, you will begin to collect bags very quickly. Conversely, if they overbid, you may want to underbid slightly. Of course, when playing in the physical world, you can communicate with each other to develop your bidding strategy as a partnership.

Bidding in Spades as a newbie

As you become more experienced with Spades, it should be possible to develop your bidding strategy as well as your trick-taking tactics. For new players, though, the following formula can be a great way to guide your bids.

Bid value = Number of Spades in your hand (minus 3) + total Ks, As (all suits) + 1 for the Q of Spades.

So if your hand includes 5 Spades as well as the King of Diamonds and Ace of Clubs, you would bid a total of 4. If you also had the Queen of Spades, you would add another point to the bid.

While a smart bid doesn’t guarantee success, it does give you the best shot at enjoying a successful hand. Get this right more frequently than you get it wrong and your hopes of reaching the milestone of 500 points will improve too.

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