# Spades - Expert AI — user reviews > 29 indexed App Store user reviews of Spades by NeuralPlay, LLC, rated 4.70/5 from 624 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spades-expert-ai/id1556139708/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/spades-expert-ai/id1556139708.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 513 · 4★ 60 · 3★ 23 · 2★ 10 · 1★ 18 ## What do users think of Spades? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 🎮 Engaging and fun card game experience - 🎯 Challenging AI difficulty levels available - 📚 Good for learning Spades rules and strategy - 🚀 Fast-moving gameplay **Cons** - 🤖 AI partner makes illogical and counterintuitive plays - 🤖 AI fails to understand basic strategy and teamwork - 🤖 AI doesn't cover partner's nil bids effectively - 🤖 AI overtrumps unnecessarily and plays against its own team - 🎲 Unfair nil hand distribution to opponents - ⚖️ Inconsistent penalty application between teams - 🔊 Loud and intrusive advertisements - 📺 Inappropriate and offensive ad content - 🐛 Card sorting and dealing inconsistencies - 🐛 Scoreboard interface is redundantly busy **Commonly reported bugs** - Cards dealt out of sequence - Unfair penalty scoring between player team and AI team - AI partner plays trump cards when bidding nil or blind nil - AI throws away winning cards and aces unnecessarily - AI leads with lowest cards when it should lead strategically **Most requested features** - Improved AI that plays with better strategy and human-like logic - AI that properly understands and covers nil bids - Statistics tracking and saving functionality - Silent advertisement option for public play - Better card layout and UI organization ## Newest reviews (9 of 29) ### 2/5 — AI Partner NOT GREAT *2026-02-01* Multiple times my AI “partner” has played a trump card when unnecessary and at a time when they bid either nil or blind nil. Looking at the cards played afterwards, there were MANY other options that would have avoided catching the trick. I don’t think the game is nearly intelligent enough to keep decent players happy. **Developer response:** If you are not already, please try Level 6. This is our best play. It uses an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation method to estimate the best plays. We have seen the AI make some errors, but they are minimal and we are working on improvements. Level 3, will play more as a human, it will not make the clear mistakes like playing a higher card during a nil. It is rule-based and has hand-designed rules to follow. Levels 4+ play better overall, but the randomness does lead to an occasional surprising play. We are working on improvements. When you see an error, you can help us by sending the Menu - Play Log screen shot to us at support@neuralplay.com. Thank you for your review. ### 3/5 — Fun but often frustrating *2024-09-07* The AI partner often plays against you and causes you to lose. For example, if the AI is the last one to play on a trick, and you have played the highest card, instead of playing a lower card and letting you take the trick, saving its higher card to win another trick, it will often play the higher card or trump you to win that trick. This undermines the team because you could have won two tricks, but it played against you and you only won one. This often keeps you from making bid when you could have, if it had not played against you. Also, when you bid nill, the AI will often lead a trick with the lowest card it has instead of a higher card, which costs you the nill bid. For example, the AI leads with a 3 of clubs, East and West play the 2 and 4 of clubs, and you have to throw whatever club is in your hand and it's obviously going to be higher and you lose the nill bid on a 5 of clubs. Then the next hand the AI throws a higher card which would have saved the nill bid had it lead with that. Overall, it's a very fun game, and hopefully the AI can learn to understand strategy and teamwork. That will make it even more fun! **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. And thank you for the detailed feedback. The AI, on levels 4+, uses an advanced Monte Carlos Simulation method to determine the best bids and plays. This results in some randomness. Whether the AI will be trying to take tricks or throw tricks away will depend on factors such as the total bid and the number of tricks remaining in addition to the team bids and individual player bids. We are continuing to work on improvements. Glad to hear it is fun overall! ### 4/5 — Fun but often frustrating *2024-09-05* The AI partner often plays against you and causes you to lose. For example, if the AI is the last one to play on a trick, and you have played the highest card, instead of playing a lower card and letting you take the trick, saving its higher card to win another trick, it will often play the higher card or trump you to win that trick. This undermines the team because you could have won two tricks, but it played against you and you only won one. This often keeps you from making bid when you could have, if it had not played against you. Also, when you bid nill, the AI will often lead a trick with the lowest card it has instead of a higher card, which costs you the nill bid. For example, the AI leads with a 3 of clubs, East and West play the 2 and 4 of clubs, and you have to throw whatever club is in your hand and it's obviously going to be higher and you lose the nill bid on a 5 of clubs. Then the next hand the AI throws a higher card which would have saved the nill bid had it lead with that. Overall, it's a very fun game, and hopefully the AI can learn to understand strategy and teamwork. That will make it even more fun! ### 4/5 — Learn Spades *2024-03-14* If you don’t understand bidding then this is for you! **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. ### 2/5 — Not Fair *2023-11-19* I noticed that if I go over my bed I get the penalty of 100 points but the other team can go over in their bed and not get a penalty of 100 points that happened twice in the last game I played this game is not fair. Also, you could tell that your partner makes mistakes that should not be made that increases our chance of losing the games. **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. We have not seen an issue with the penalties. If you see this again, please send us more details of when this happens at support@neuralplay.com. We are working on improvements to the AI players. ### 3/5 — Needs work *2023-04-12* Would have rated this game higher, but needs significant improvement in the AI to play more like a human. To many instances where partners are over trumping. **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. The computer players use an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation AI method on levels 4+. They will sometimes overtrump to avoid bags. We are working on improvements. If you see some case(s) where it is wrong, please send us a screen shot of the play log (Menu - Play Log). We are working on improvements. ### 4/5 — The Game Is Programmed To Lose Books *2023-03-25* The computer players are throwing away winning books like Aces, kings etc., or not winning the book by holding back winning cards before the books are made! **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. The computer players use an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation AI method on levels 4+. Here, they will sometimes make some add plays in effort to take the exact number of tricks that have been bid and avoid extra bags. It can be challenging to balance this. We are working on improvements. ### 3/5 — Hmm. *2021-08-21* The bots don’t know how to cover partner’s nil or defeat opponents’ nils. Their bag control is weak. And the scoreboard is redundantly busy. Otherwise, not a bad game of spades. **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. We are working on improvements. Our most recent version has some AI improvements. ### 2/5 — AI Plays Ridiculously, and Ads Are LOUD *2021-05-11* You’d think the AI would be set to play at least somewhat like a human...but no. Random cards thrown at random times. AI has the Ace of hearts on a 12 bid? AI will probably throw the 10 of hearts instead. Don’t expect your AI to cover a nil! Also, the ads are hella loud and you have to search for the volume button to mute. Why not have silent ads so one could play in public (on a plane or his or at the DMV) without disturbing others? How am I supposed to play during boring work meetings with your LOUD ADS???? **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. The AI on level 3 uses human based rules. The AI will play more human like than the more advance levels 4+. Levels 4+ use an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation based AI to determine the plays. The AI will play better than the AI on level 3 on average, however it does make some odd plays. We are working on improvements. We are working on improving the ad based experience. We also offer an in-app purchase to remove ads. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Nil victories *2026-04-26* This started out being a good game with the exception of the cards being spread out into two rows requiring some attention in playing a hand. But the game keeps feeding opponents Nil hands to win, in some games, every round featured the other team going nil. That makes the game no fun at all. Shame, that. **Developer response:** The deals are not biased to any seat. With more play, the luck should change. The AI uses an advanced Monte Carlo method to play on the higher levels. We play on level 1 for more relaxing games. Thank you for your review. ### 1/5 — Bad partner plays abound *2026-04-24* The moves make no sense. Trumping with a high trump. Partner leading a low card when you are going low. When you are going low, instead of playing some trump cards to allow you to clear out some high cards, the partner will continue leading a non trump suit until you get set…like playing for the other side. There’s no way this is AI **Developer response:** The AI uses an advanced Monte Carlo method to play on the higher levels. There is a bit of randomness as it decides whether to try to set the opponents or avoid bags. We are working on improvements. Thank you for your review. ### 1/5 — Bad game algorithms *2025-12-26* Dont bother to play Solo format if you are expecting a challenging game. The badly structured algorithm ensures that every hand is balanced, with either 3 or 4 points per player And the Standard format is little better, with the opposite pair receiving the more aggressive hands, and never failing to achieve a Nil point hand This version is too predictable, and ho-hum boring **Developer response:** The deals are random and not biased to any seat. With more play the luck should change. More aggressive and Nil hands should occur for your team too. Thank you for your review. ### 1/5 — AI is a moron *2025-11-15* I’ve got it on the highest level. My ai partner bid Nil. I’m running Spades so my partner can dump his worst cards. Idiot AI plays a 6 of Diamonds. So I lead my 5 of Diamonds. Which the AI takes with its 10 of Diamonds. There is nothing complicated about this. It wants to not take any tricks, but sloughs a low card rather than a high one. Garbage **Developer response:** Thank you for the report. This should not happen. Note level 3 uses human designed rules to prevent this. Level 6 uses a more advanced AI method called Random Monte Carlo Simulation. Level 6 does play better than level 3 overall, however the randomness may cause a rare obvious mistake. We are working on improvements. Thank you for your review. ### 1/5 — Realistic 🫤😫 *2025-03-24* AI either is far behind, or the designers of this game are lacking in creativity. Their AI isn’t close to being realistic. **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. We are working on AI improvements. ### 1/5 — Could be a great game *2024-02-12* I really liked this game in he begining; then all of a sudden it started giving won books to my opponents, and sorting the cards out of sequence. So frustrating as Spades is my favorite card game I spend all day playing spades especially on weekends. Fix your game **Developer response:** Thank you for your review. We apologize for the problem. This should not happen. It could be a problem with settings. Please try Main Screen - Menu - Reset, to get back to our default settings. If you see the issue again please contact us at support@neuralplay.com for additional help. ### 1/5 — The AI is an idiot. It doesn’t get smarter, it’s gets dumber. *2023-07-22, version 2.40* Terrible ### 1/5 — Offensive adds *2022-03-22, version 1.80* The adds depict violence and very negative views of women. I don’t know who you think your audience is, but it’s not me. Dumping game. ### 1/5 — Don’t let the App name fool you *2021-05-20, version 1.10* AI, maybe smarter than a rock, but not by much. My partner makes the most asinine moves. ### 2/5 — Makes illogical moves *2026-06-08* Makes illogical moves. Will take a trick with a spade after bidding a NIl when holding a none spade card. Will take a trick when I bid a NIl when player player to my left has already beat my card. This leaves me vurnable with a higher card. **Developer response:** The AI bot player certainly should not take a tricks with a spade unnecessarily when bidding nil. Please see Settings -> Level to make sure you are playing on level 3 or higher. Play on level 3 has human designed rules and should play as a good human does. Play on Levels 4+ use an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation method. We have seen some creative play, like perhaps taking a trick with a high spade when the nil is not makable when both teams have bid nil. This could make sense to tell partner that the nil is not makable and it is best to try to defeat the opponent's nil. Thank you for your review. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Really good!! *2026-06-15, version 4.51* Addicted to this!!! ### 5/5 — Mental Challenge *2026-06-09* This Spades game is very hard to beat. Great for honing my logic and skills. **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. ### 5/5 — Seriously? *2026-04-30, version 4.50* Do the people who write the code for these games actually know how to play them? On level 5 the computer partner should play with some level of skill. Instead, it plays poorly. It overbids, underbids, unnecessarily takes tricks I clearly have and need when it doesn’t need to, doesn’t take tricks it clearly needs when it can, and takes unnecessary bags. Curious why a poor rating won’t upload. ### 5/5 — Advertisement *2025-12-03* One ad that keeps appearing is surprisingly inappropriate. I believe it is an AI with photos ad. **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. We apologize for the bad ad. We are working with our ad providers to improve the ad-based experience. Thank you for your review. ### 5/5 — Good AI *2025-01-31* i have tried a few Spades games from the app store and this one is the toughest. **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. ### 5/5 — Not bad - but not very smart AI. *2024-11-05* Hint to doing well - always plan on getting 2 additional tricks to whatever you are bidding when your AI partner is going nil. Your AI partner will at times lead small to cover your nil - for no reason, get used to that, but if you just hit the step-back, it will often see the error if its way and re-lead with a strong card. The AI opponents often place way too much value on getting you to take extra tricks - don’t worry about it - just protect your partner’s nil and you’ll be fine. **Developer response:** Thank you for your review and helpful analysis. The AI uses an advanced Monte Carlo Simulation to determine its plays at the higher levels. The simulation is performed again so when you undo and give it another chance it may notice the mistake. We are working on AI improvements. We have some improvements in the next release. ### 5/5 — Partner is bad *2024-06-25, version 3.21* Partner throws crazy cards ### 5/5 — I don’t like when my partner has the ace of spades but will bid nil *2023-01-28* I don’t like when my partner has the ace of spades but will bid nil **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. We are working on improvements. We have not seen a nil bid with an ace of spades in the standard spades variation. We will look for this and work on a fix. If you see this again, please send a screen shot to support@neuralplay.com. ### 5/5 — Needs Stats *2021-05-12* I like this game a lot. Pretty fast moving. But it needs to have a way to save one’s statistics. Otherwise I’d have rated it 5 stars. **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. We have recently added detailed statistics. Thank you for the suggestion. ### 5/5 — Didn’t expect it! *2021-03-15* I always thought spades were used for digging in the garden. This app showed me how wrong I was. Turns out spades is a card game with a dog gone tough AI. Fun and recommended. **Developer response:** Glad to hear you are enjoying NeuralPlay Spades. Thank you for your review. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-29.*