The origin of the popular card game Spades.
It was a typical night in a Cincinnati, Ohio college dorm in the late 1930s (or so legend has it). Two bored freshmen were bursting at the seams with energy and in desperate need of some post-homework entertainment. War rumors were circulating, big band jazz led by Tommy Dorsey and Duke Ellington was all the rage, and these inexperienced students could have been out on the town doing the lindy hop with real girls, but not tonight. The all-important subject of card games would be the main event on the evening’s agenda here.
Spades Game Origin
They were bored with the card games they knew how to play and wanted to try something new. There was only one thing left to do: create a brand new game that no one had ever seen before. They were familiar with Whist and Bridge, but they wanted to create something more exciting and fast-paced, that satisfied their competitive nature while also requiring some strategy. They ended up creating Spades that fateful night.
A Whist-family game is similar to Bridge.
Contact Bridge is a simplified version of Spades. In fact, the better you get at spades, the more likely you are to be a good Bridge player as well (with a few adjustments to the rules of gameplay, of course).
Spades, like Hearts, Bridge, and Oh Hell, is derived from the Whist family of card games. All of the Whist card games are played by taking “tricks” (a set of four cards, one for each player), which are won by placing down the highest card of the round or playing a trump card. The main difference between spades and most other Whist card games is that the trump suit is always spades (hence the name), whereas the trump suit in most of the other games can change. Spades is also one of the few card games in which joker cards can be used in regular play.
During WWII, spades proliferated.
While the game did gradually spread to other college campuses, it was WWII that was largely responsible for spades’ early popularity explosion. Several soldiers from Cincinnati taught others how to play their hometown card game during the war. Card games were already a popular pastime for military personnel because they were easy to pack and transport. Bridge, Euchre, and Poker were the most popular card games among WWII troops. Spades was a natural fit for the military men because it was easier to learn and play than Bridge or Euchre (and good Bridge players obviously became great spades players very quickly), and gameplay could be interrupted more easily than Poker. Playing cards were easily portable, and a game of spades could be completed in less than twenty minutes with a small group of people. Throughout the Second World War, it was played on armed forces bases all over the world.
A new American sport
The G.I. Bill reduced the cost of a college education for troops at the time. Many soldiers returning from the grim battlefields of WWII brought the lighthearted card game with them to college, where they shared their new, fun way to relax and enjoy some well-deserved free time with other university co-eds. For those who stayed in the workforce, spades was frequently played at lunch in break rooms at factories and office buildings alike, bringing employees together and bridging the social class divide (pun definitely intended).
Surprisingly, despite being a popular American pastime, it has remained a largely underground, cult-classic game. It was not considered legitimate enough to be mentioned at all in card game books published as recently as the 1960s to the 1980s, such as 1969’s encyclopedic Official Rules of Card Games (57th edition), despite the fact that this book was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, the birthplace of spades.
Modern spades has become a worldwide sensation on the internet.
However, the game has recently received the recognition it deserves, and its large fan base continues to grow. Spades online is the most popular online card game, with Poker and Blackjack following closely behind. In the United States, spades is also the most popular partnership card game.
Online and in-person spade games are more popular than ever, with celebrations taking place in community centers and on college campuses across the country. Every year, Howard University in Washington, DC hosts a massive spades tournament with special prizes, happy hour specials, and both single and team games enjoyed by the entire community. In Atlanta, Georgia, a Spades social club open to all players in the city meets every Friday night to play spades “to start the weekend off right,” and they’re even planning a spades cruise this summer to take their favorite game to the high seas.