The History of Spades

Spades is an American trick-taking game of the 1930s and a member of the whist family, played by two partnerships with spades always trump. Its origin story is disputed: no record names an inventor, and the birthplace usually given, Cincinnati, rests on one uncited account. The firmer history begins with the Second World War, when US servicemen carried the game overseas, and with the veterans who took it to college in the late 1940s.

Where Spades Began

Spades began in the United States in the 1930s; beyond that, the city and the year are disputed.

The most specific claim comes from George Coffin, an American bridge writer, who is said to have traced Spades to the Midwest and dated its arrival in Cincinnati, Ohio, to sometime between 1937 and 1939. From there, the account goes, it reached nearby cities and then the armed forces. The account does not say where Coffin published this, and no writing of his on Spades has been traced, so Cincinnati is best read as his attribution rather than settled fact.

Some references say only "the Midwest" or "the late 1930s." A legend sets the first game in a Cincinnati college dorm room during the years of the Great Migration; nothing documents it.

The part African American players had in the game's creation is also unknown. One account of Black Spades culture calls the game wholly African American in origin, yet says in the same piece that scholars do not know how involved Black players were at the start. No record from the 1930s settles the question.

The Whist Family

Spades descends from Whist and belongs to the branch of that family that added bidding: an American game grown from European ones.

Whist came out of Triumph, a trump game of the 16th century, by way of Ruff and Honours, the English game described in The Complete Gamester in 1674. Serious Whist play began in London around 1728, and Hoyle's treatise on the game followed in 1742. Whist had partners and a trump suit, but no bidding.

Bridge brought in the auction. Its first published rules appeared in 1886 under the name Biritch, or Russian Whist. Auction bridge was devised in 1904, and contract bridge took its modern shape with Harold Vanderbilt's rules of 1925. One survey in 1941 found contract bridge in 44 percent of American households.

Card-game references file Spades in the Auction Whist group, whose games pair fixed partners and let the players choose trumps instead of turning up a card. Bid Whist, contract bridge, and Back Alley Bridge sit in the same group. Spades bends the pattern: spades are always trump, so there is no auction for trumps, but every player still bids the number of tricks they expect to take, as the spades rules set out. Some references describe the result as a simplified contract bridge; no record says that was anyone's aim.

Bid Whist is the other candidate for parent. Community accounts describe Spades as derived from it, some Bid Whist players call Spades "Baby Bid," and a 2008 public radio feature called Bid Whist the "grand elder" to Spades. The reference books make the two games siblings in one group, not parent and child, and no document decides between the two views.

Oh Hell, in which each player bids an exact number of tricks and plays alone, is dated to Britain around 1930 and to New York clubs by 1931. It came slightly before Spades, but no account makes it an ancestor.

Hearts, a trick-avoidance game dated to the late 19th century, is a more distant cousin whose family is itself disputed. Some classifications put it in the whist group; others give it a separate group of reverse games, where the aim is to avoid tricks. Our guide to Hearts vs Spades compares the two at the table.

World War II

The Second World War moved Spades far beyond its first home. The game went into the military, and US servicemen carried it with them around the world.

Card-game writers give two reasons it suited service life. It was simpler than Bridge and Euchre, and it played quickly, so a game could be broken off at any moment, more easily than a round of Poker.

Outside the United States, the game stayed little known except in countries that hosted American troops, such as parts of Germany, where it kept a following.

Campuses and Communities

Returning veterans brought Spades home, and the GI Bill sent many of them to college, where fellow students picked it up. By the late 1940s it was popular on college campuses, and from there it moved into home games.

Spades is also a lasting tradition in African American communities, as Bid Whist is. The version widely played there adds a big and a little joker as the two highest trumps, takes out two deuces to keep the pack at 52, and ranks the 2 of spades, and in some games the 2 of diamonds, above the Ace of spades. One recorded form drops the nil bid and lets a side bid "blind seven" instead. One account of the table talk records tricks called books, a side that takes all 13 "running a Boston," and "rise and fly," where the losing team gives up its seats.

The game has a place in print and on screen. Terrance Hayes's poem "We Should Make a Documentary About Spades" appeared in his 2015 collection How to Be Drawn. By one account, Malcolm D. Lee's 1999 film The Best Man and "My Prerogative," a second-season episode of ABC's mixed-ish, both include Spades scenes.

Spades Goes Online

One card-game reference credits the online card rooms of the mid-1990s with making Spades popular outside the United States.

Microsoft's Internet Gaming Zone, later the MSN Gaming Zone, grew out of an online games service called The Village, which Microsoft bought and relaunched in 1996. It is reported to have opened with a handful of card and board games, Spades among them. Yahoo! Games, which opened on 31 March 1998, also listed Spades among its card games. Around 1998 a browser site called WebDeck offered Spades, Euchre, and Hearts in Java; Pogo, which launched under that name in September 1999, later bought it.

Internet Spades then came built into Windows, in the Internet games set of Windows Me, on sale from 14 September 2000, and of Windows XP, on sale from 25 October 2001. On XP it matched players through the MSN Gaming Zone. Windows Vista left it out, and Windows 7 brought it back.

Microsoft switched the servers off in two stages: Internet games on Windows XP and Me on 31 July 2019, and those on Windows 7 on 22 January 2020. Those two dates ended Internet Spades on every version of Windows that had shipped it. Today you can play spades online free in a browser, against the computer or with friends at a private table.

Timeline

• 1674Ruff and Honours, the forerunner of Whist, is described in The Complete Gamester.
• c.1728Serious Whist play begins in London.
• 1742Hoyle publishes his treatise on Whist.
• 1886The first published bridge rules appear, as Biritch, or Russian Whist.
• 1904Auction bridge is devised.
• 1925Harold Vanderbilt's rules establish contract bridge.
• 1930sSpades appears in the United States. An account attributed to the bridge writer George Coffin places its start in Cincinnati between 1937 and 1939.
• 1941-1945US servicemen spread Spades during the Second World War and carry it overseas.
• Late 1940sVeterans on the GI Bill take the game to college campuses and into home games.
• 1996Microsoft launches the Internet Gaming Zone, reportedly with Spades among its first games.
• 31 March 1998Yahoo! Games opens, with Spades among its card games.
• 14 September 2000Windows Me goes on sale with Internet Spades.
• 25 October 2001Windows XP goes on sale with Internet Spades.
• 2015Terrance Hayes publishes the poem "We Should Make a Documentary About Spades" in How to Be Drawn.
• 31 July 2019Microsoft switches off Internet games on Windows XP and Me.
• 22 January 2020Microsoft switches off Internet games on Windows 7.