What is Mirror?
In the standard game each player looks at their hand and bids the number of tricks they expect to win, from 1 to 13, or nil. In Mirror the bid is fixed by the cards: every player must bid exactly the number of spades they hold. A player with five spades bids 5, a player with one spade bids 1.
A player with no spades at all must bid nil, which is scored as an ordinary nil: 100 points if they take no tricks and minus 100 if they take any. Blind nil is never offered, because there is nothing to choose.
With the bids decided by the deal, the skill moves to the play. Each side has to win exactly as many tricks as it holds spades, so players work to cash their trumps, take tricks with high cards in other suits only when they are needed, and push unwanted tricks on to the other side to avoid bags.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Spades | Mirror |
|---|---|---|
| Your bid | Standard SpadesAny number of tricks from 1 to 13, or nil. | MirrorExactly the number of spades in your hand. There is no choice. |
| No spades in hand | Standard SpadesYou may still bid any number, or nil. | MirrorYou must bid nil, scored as nil: 100 points for taking no tricks, minus 100 if you take any. |
| Blind nil | Standard SpadesOffered when the option is on, worth 200 points or minus 200. | MirrorNever offered. |
| Scoring | Standard SpadesPartners' bids are added; 10 points per bid trick when made, 1 point and a bag per extra trick, minus 10 per bid trick when not made. | MirrorUnchanged. |
| Other options | Standard SpadesBlind nil, the bags penalty, the target score, jokers, cutthroat and two to four players can be chosen. | MirrorMirror works with all of them except the blind nil option, which it switches off. With jokers, each joker counts as a spade you hold. |
History
Mirror is one of the fixed-bid rule sets that online Spades rooms and apps offer next to the standard game, along with Whiz and Suicide. Their descriptions differ: most say each player must bid the number of spades in their hand, others add or change rules, and no origin for the rule is recorded. One of them gives the version played here, in which a player with no spades must bid nil.
The classic reference descriptions of Spades do not list Mirror at all.