Five Hundred Scoring, Explained

Five Hundred's scoring table looks intimidating at first because the same number of tricks bid is worth a completely different amount depending on which trump suit was named — and a failed bid doesn't just score zero, it costs exactly the value the bid would have been worth.

The bid-value table for 6 and 7 tricks

• 6 tricks: Spades 40, Clubs 60, Diamonds 80, Hearts 100, No-Trumps 120.
• 7 tricks: Spades 140, Clubs 160, Diamonds 180, Hearts 200, No-Trumps 220.
• Misère (bid to take zero tricks, no trump): 250.
• Open Misère (Misère played with the bidder's hand face-up): 500.

Every step up in tricks, and every step up in suit rank (spades lowest, clubs, diamonds, hearts, no-trumps highest), raises the value — which is exactly why bidding "seven no-trumps" is worth nearly six times as much as "six spades," despite needing only one more trick.

Worked example 1: a successful mid-level bid

The bidding partnership wins the contract at "seven diamonds" — 180 points on the table above. They take exactly 7 tricks during play, meeting the bid precisely. They score the full 180 points. Their opponents score nothing for the hand regardless of how many tricks they personally took, since only the contract's value is scored for a made bid, not a per-trick amount for the defense.

Worked example 2: the same bid, but it fails

Same bid — "seven diamonds," worth 180 — but the partnership only manages 6 tricks during play, falling one short. Because the bid wasn't met, the partnership doesn't score a smaller, prorated amount for the tricks they did take. They lose the FULL bid value: -180 points, subtracted directly from their running total. Missing by one trick costs exactly as much as missing by five would.

Worked example 3: misère succeeding

A player bids Misère — betting they can take zero tricks across the entire hand, playing alone against the other players (their partner sits out completely). They succeed, taking no tricks at all, and score the full 250 points for it — more than even a strong "seven no-trumps" bid (220), despite requiring no card strength at all, just a genuinely trickless hand and careful play to avoid being forced to win one.

Worked example 4: open misère, doubling the stakes and the risk

A different hand: a player bids Open Misère instead, immediately laying their entire hand face-up on the table before the first card is even led, betting they can still take zero tricks despite every opponent seeing exactly what they hold. They succeed — a much harder feat with a fully revealed hand — and score 500 points, exactly double standard Misère's value, which is the direct trade-off for taking on a dramatically harder version of the same bet.

Worked example 5: open misère failing

Contrast that with an Open Misère attempt that fails: the bidder's revealed hand gets picked apart by the other players, who deliberately steer tricks into the bidder's forced cards, and the bidder ends up winning 2 tricks despite the all-or-nothing bet. Because Open Misère is worth 500, the failed bidder loses the full 500 points — the single largest single-hand swing available in the entire game, won or lost.

Worked example 6: tracking a match toward the winning or losing threshold

A partnership's running score sits at 380 after several hands. They win the bid at "six hearts" (100 points) and make it cleanly, bringing their total to 480 — still short of the 500 needed to win outright. Two hands later, needing only 20 more points, they bid conservatively at "six spades" (40 points) rather than reaching for a bigger contract, since even the smallest available bid is enough to cross 500 if it succeeds; overbidding here would only add unnecessary risk for no extra benefit once the finish line is this close.

Why the joker complicates counting the hand's cards, not just its trump

Because the joker functions as the top trump in a trump contract but becomes a suit-following card under the bidder's own announcement in a no-trumps contract (and the lowest card in the deck during a Misère bid), tallying up which side actually "should" have won a given trick sometimes requires tracing exactly which rule applied to the joker that specific hand — it's the one card in the deck whose behavior depends entirely on the bid in play, rather than being fixed the way every other card's rank is.

Worked example 7: how the same six tricks can be worth a triple swing

Six spades is worth 40. Six no-trumps is worth 120 — exactly three times as much, for identically six tricks bid and made. A partnership deciding between a safe, low-value spade contract and a riskier no-trumps bid on the same cards is really choosing between a small guaranteed gain and a result worth three times more if it comes off, but also three times more painful if it fails, since the penalty for a missed bid always mirrors whatever the bid itself was worth. This suit-driven multiplier is exactly why bidding in Five Hundred is rarely just about how many tricks a hand can realistically take — the suit named matters just as much as the trick count.

Why partnerships track running totals rather than hand-by-hand tallies

Because a single hand can move a partnership's score by anywhere from 40 to 500 points in either direction, most tables keep a single running total per side rather than a per-hand scoresheet — the number that actually decides the match is whichever side first crosses 500 (a win) or drops to -500 (a loss), not any individual hand's result taken in isolation.

The fastest way to score a hand

1. Confirm the bid's exact value from the table (suit and trick count, or Misère/Open Misère).
2. If the bid was met exactly or exceeded, award the full listed value — never a per-trick amount.
3. If the bid fell short by any margin, subtract the full listed value from the bidding side's total — a miss by one trick costs the same as a miss by several.
4. Confirm which joker rule applied that hand (trump, no-trumps, or Misère) before assuming its rank without checking the bid type.

For the deal, kitty exchange and how trump actually gets named, see the full Five Hundred rules and the dispute page for the joker's exact behavior argued case by case.