Poker, Hearts, and Blackjack get all the love, butknow the joy of a gentleman’s game. It mixes your ability to predict how well you can play and forces you to not only play a given hand as best as possible, but to guess how well you can play it! This main distinction (besides seeking versus avoiding tricks) between Spades and its companion, Hearts, and why it is said to require more skill . Internet Spades, however is much more of a good time than playing in person.

The betting and bag system of Spades scoring already make it a superior game to Hearts, but there are a few great reasons why playing online, free multiplayer Spades is specifically preferable to organizing a real-life game.

#1 You play with people who actually care about playing Spades card games

Many of us have fond memories of learning to play cards with our friends and family. Many of us don’t. Either way, getting together four reliable people to play cards together is no easy task in 2017. Everyone is constantly distracted by their smartphone, and many of our friends and relatives, no matter how much we love them, can’t be trusted to view a card game night as anything but an excuse to get sloppy drunk.

There’s no fun in making smart bids and counter plays against Aunt Susan when she’s half in the bag. When you play online, though, you’re playing people who cared enough about the game to seek out other real people (instead of robots) and put your skills to the test against them.

And luckily with Spades card game, there is enough of an element of luck that even if you’re playing against cardsharps exponentially better gamblers than you, with a few smart bids and a bit of luck, you can have a chance at any level of skill.

#2 You can enjoy background entertainment

Nothing quite like a relaxing game of cards with an ice cold beer or a good glass of wine, a nice card game going, and old reruns of King of the Hill playing in the background. Spades plus more is always fun, and not rude when you’re playing spades online free multiplayer!

#3 You can Google on the fly, and ask friends for advice

Something that would be considered cheating in real life, playing an online card game gives everyone this same freedom. Of course, you have a countdown timer that typically prevents from doing too much in-depth research, and your Spade-savant friend will probably only allow you a few phone-a-friend lifelines before you become too annoying to help, but if you’re playing a particularly intense game or find yourself in a particularly deadlocked rivalry with an online opponent, playing Spades online at least gives you this option!

#4 No human dealing

No waiting and fumbling while your friend deals the sloppy and poorly-shuffled deck. No worrying about a nimble dealer at an in-person club dealing from the bottom of the deck. No angry person yelling at you because you just cost them $100 when you dropped that Ace of Spades on their king. Nobody likes a sore loser, Becky! With robot dealers, though, you can get through about three games in the time it takes you to rustle up a group of humans to play one!

#5 You can play in your underwear

Enough said.

#6 Spades takes just the right amount of brain cells

Whist-type card games like Spades and Hearts are wistful type of games, as their name implies and is in fact the etymological root. There is plenty of strategy to be had in bidding and bags, but the gameplay itself flows along quite nicely, unlike the stutter-start games like Poker, or the mental drudgery of Solitaire and Shanghai. And you can play free Spades games to start before having to worry if you need to start thinking harder about your bets.

Whist-type games keep cards constantly being played until the deck is done, which is why many find playing Spades online a breath of fresh air, while other competitive card games much more stressful.

#7 Spades exceeds in replay-value

Every game is unique. The replayability of Spades is hard to overstate. You’re not playing your odds on every hand like Poker, which ends up being taxing, and you’re not always searching for Aces like when playing Solitaire. Spades is a perfect online game to kill time because the more you play, the more your own gameplay evolves in minor ways. You get excited one hand for having a ton of Spades, and then, on a rare occasion, you get to go nil!

Or even better schadenfreude, nothing beats that one trick you force an opponent going nil to take. Especially if they were beating you! And nothing stings quite like being that person trying to go nil only to be forced to take that trick. The game moves along so quickly though, you can’t help but want to play another. Until next time.

By Andrew Hendricks