How to Play With Playing Cards: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Playing cards‒such as the standard Bicycle Deck‒is an excellent way to connect with others, improve your mental health, and strengthen your cognitive skills. Whether you’re a senior looking for solitaire games or have never formally played a game with playing cards before, Spades.co has the guide you need.

There is a wide array of card games you can play using a standard playing cards deck. Some popular games include Solitaire, Spades, Hearts, and War. These games can be quick to learn and can become more challenging as you dive into the different strategies for gameplay.

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about a deck of playing cards, a brief overview of popular card games, and where you can play Spades online for free with no downloads.

Cards In the Deck

There are fifty-two cards in a standard deck of playing cards. Every deck of playing cards will have four suits: Hearts (red), Spades (black), Clubs (black), and Diamonds (red). Each suit has one of each of the following cards:

• King
• Queen
• Jack
• Ten
• Nine
• Eight
• Seven
• Six
• Five
• Four
• Three
• Two
• One
• Ace

Each deck will also come with two Joker cards, but not all games have the Joker cards in play. Depending on the game you play, Aces may be the highest scoring card or the lowest.

Common Playing Card Games

There are hundreds of games you can play using a standard playing cards deck. You can use this deck to play single-player games, like Solitaire, or games with as many as twelve players, like Old Maid.

Here are the basics of some of the popular card games:

Solitaire

Solitaire is a single-player game in which Kings hold the highest value and Aces hold the lowest value. The fifty-two cards are divided into seven columns. The first column has one card facing up, the second column has two cards with one card facing up, the third column has three cards with one card facing up and so on.

Also make space for four foundation piles‒one for each suit.

You play by moving the face-up cards to build sequences in descending order and alternating between red cards (Hearts and Diamonds) and black cards (Spades and Clubs). Once a column is empty, you can move a King there or move a sequence that starts with a King there. Then, draw from the stockpile to find playable cards.

The game is won when you create four foundation piles in ascending order from Ace to King.

Spades

Spades is a trick-taking game usually played with four players divided into pairs. Each player is dealt thirteen cards, and the player to the left of the dealer makes a bid‒a prediction of how many tricks their team will win in the round. Aces are the highest value cards, then Kings, then Queens, and so on. Spades always trump other cards.

The round begins with a player putting down a card that is not a Spade if Spades haven’t been broken. Players must follow the suit (play the same suit as on the table), unless they do not have a card in that suit‒then they may play a Spade (or another suit). The highest card in the leading suit or the highest Spade wins the trick.

Partners score points based on their bids; achieving the bid awards them with points, but falling short of your bid results in penalties. The first pair to win 500 points wins.

Hearts

Hearts is similar to Spades. It is a trick-taking game with four players and each player is dealt thirteen cards. All players pass three cards to an opponent before play begins. The player with the two of Clubs leads the first trick and players must follow suit if possible, or they can play any other card.

Instead of earning points, you want to lose them. You want to avoid winning tricks with Hearts or the Queen of Spades, because each heart is worth one point and the Queen of Spades is worth thirteen points. The player with the lowest score wins once any player reaches or surpasses one hundred points.

War

War is a card game for two players. The deck is shuffled and evenly dealt to both players. Players will reveal the top card of their stack at the same time. The higher card wins both cards, placing them at the bottom of the winner’s stack.

If the cards are of equal value, ‘war’ takes place. Each player lays three cards face-down and one face-up. The higher face-up card wins all of the cards. If it’s another tie, players will repeat the war. The game ends when one player has all of the cards.

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