A friend recently revealed that purposely reneging during spades is part of their strategy at times (like if they know they aren't going to make their books).

I said that's cheatin!

Their argument was, it's not cheating. It's part of the game and the rules provide that if you get caught, the game goes on you just lose 3 books.

Their example was its like if you purposely foul someone to keep them from making their shot in basketball. Its not cheating, you just have to deal with the penalty for doing it if you get caught.

What say you?

Poll question: Is purposely reneging in spades cheating?

Poll result (17 votes) Heck yeah (5 votes) Vote No, a penalty is built into the rules. (12 votes) Vote

The penalty is there just because you can't put "his ass will be banned from the table indefinitely" in the rule book.

It takes all the fun away from the game when people bend the spirit of the rules.

Intentional fouling in basketball is wack too and sucks the fun out of the game

"But rest assured, in my luxurious house built on the backs of people darker than me, I am sipping fine scotch and scoffing at how stupid you are." - bshelly

I like the comparison to intentionally fouling a bad FT player or someone on a fast break.

like fouling, traveling, double dribbling, out of boundds

Cheating is when its your deal and you try to hide a joker in your sleeve and skip yourself when dealing. That's cheating.

The foul in basketball analogy is a good one.

so its fair imo

i used to accidentally renege a lot when i was first starting to learn to the point i couldn't trust myself. so if i noticed, i'd just save the card (if it was low) til the final hand where it was so obvious to everyone who was gonna win the hand, nobody actually looked at any of the cards.

house rules tho. Whomever house it is…make the rules.

and they aren’t new to the game

its intentional.

that they would’ve lost if they played it straight up.

get away with it. We’ll, if you’re slick and the people you’re playing against aren’t that good. If you reneg cutting somewhat hearts early in the hand, and your partner knows you well enough to understand what you did and not set you right back up with hearts, then late in the game you might be able to get away with throwing off that last heart you had once others have gotten rid of theirs and they might not notice.

But if they do notice the penalty is baked into the rules of the game. Do NOT do this is you and your partner aren’t on the same page. Do NOT do this if you playing with some for real Spades players, because they’ll remember the entire hand that you were cutting hearts.

For the above point about reneging to purposely get penalized, that would only make sense if you and your partner REALLY underbid and we’re about to get a big sandbagging penalty. So maybe if you’re playing with an inexperienced partner who didn’t know their hand and underbid. But even in that case there’s more subtle ways to cut down the books you’re winning - like butting heads, cutting your partner when they already won the book, etc.

to avoid getting set is stupid.

You're still losing that hand if they snatch the three books.

If you’re about to get hit with a 100 point sandbagging penalty for underbidding, reneging and taking the 3 book penalty on purpose could make sense to keep you under 10 sandbags. Again if you’re doing this, either you or your partner are terrible at bidding, but if you’re experienced and your partner isn’t I could see this as a legit strategy.

If you’re not keeping score and just playing individual hands or rise and fly, there’s no way it makes sense.

intentionally do it.. lol

But I play a lot of spades so I’m just trying to think of a scenario where it could make sense. To be clear I’m talking about purposely taking the penalty, not trying to be slick and getting away with it - I’ve definitely done that.

sandbagging.

I’ve always seen it done to steal a book.

When I have an Ace and a King of Clubs and that King gets cut.. best believe I’m watching like a hawk on those last 2 or 3 books.. lol.

>When I have an Ace and a King of Clubs and that King gets cut.. best believe I’m watching like a hawk on those last 2 or 3 books.. lol.

Niggas don't be playing when it comes to spades. I wouldn't play with someone like this and I DAMN sure wouldn't want them on my team.