SpadesTips
Beginners Corner
Beginner's Korner: Covering Nils -- Part 1 of a 2 Part Article
This month, we go "back to basics." The Nil bid is the most effective weapon in the game of Spades. After all, we are looking at a 100-point bonus here! There has been plenty of material written about bidding and playing Nils. Spades is a partnership game, and covering of Nils is also a key element. When your partner bids Nil, you must assume that he may be looking for help. Although some Nils are "ironclad," many have inherent weaknesses. Sometimes a "gambling" Nil is made with a side-suit holding such as A 7 3 or K 8 5 (yikes!). There might be a stray five- or six-spot in a side suit that could promote to a winner in the endgame (after the trump has been extracted). A very ticklish situation occurs when the Nil bid consists of trump holdings such as four small-spot cards (ugh!), or Spades that look like this: Q 8 7, J 10 3, or 10 9 6 (egad!). For the record, if my partner bids Nils trump suits of this variety, we must be losing by a whole boatload of points!
Basically, it is a race between you (the cover hand), and the defense. You are trying to protect your partner at all costs -- even if you lose your own bid. After all, the value of the Nil is far greater than most numerical bids. Yes, there are exceptions that will be dictated by the score, the bag count, the endgame, and the opponents’ combined bids. However, we are dealing with the common bread-and-butter scenario of a typical Nil bid, which occurs at the beginning or in the middle of a game. When you are covering a Nil, you should try to gain the lead, if it is advantageous to do so. For example, if you hold a nice long running suit with lots of high cards, this is the time you want to have the reins. On the other side of the coin, if you have a hand that has potentially fatal low cards, or dangerous suits such as A 4 2 or Q 6 2, you want to have the opponents on lead, especially from your left side. If your right-hand opponent leads a side-suit King, and you hold the Ace, 9, and 3 of that suit, you must play low. Grabbing the Ace on the first-round lead could be an error. You might lose that Ace -- who cares? Then again, if an opponent leads the Deuce or 3 of a suit, and you hold A Q 10 7 2, your best play is the Ace. Your partner will be able to unload any bad cards of that suit, or any other bad side-suit cards if he is void.
Speaking of side-suit voids, you will realize that they are the friends of Nils! If the Nil hand is void of the side-suit led, he will be unloading his "dogs" from the other two side suits. If you have a void, and the lead comes from the left, it allows you to shorten another suit, or use a trump if partner is holding this trick when it
comes around to you. If the lead comes from the right and you are, you will be forced to guess. The safety play here is that of a low trump, followed by a shift to your strongest suit. A word of caution (and we will cover this in the next installment): the trump suit must be used wisely. Breaking Spades can be helpful to the defense, too. Often, the shortening of a three-card Spade suit can critically weaken a cover hand.
The opponents may want to strip trump from you, or try to promote a Spade winner in your partner's hand. When you lead a strong suit, your "Nilling" partner must try to provide information to you. For example, if you lead the Ace of Hearts, and your partner drops the nine-spot, you may assume that the lead of the 8 of Hearts is safe. This is called "walking the suit." (If your partner shows up with a higher Heart, then it is time to have a "chit chat.") Some very sophisticated pairs use fancy conventions such as "Nil Reverse Signals" or High-Low Count Signals. These "gadgets" are mentioned in the published Spades books. We will explore more details and examples in the next column.
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must clear the three Aces out of the way. Now, lead a low Heart to West. He is forced to play Hearts, as Spades have not been "broken." Allow West to win the next two leads of Hearts, as you toss two Diamonds from the North hand and two Clubs from your hand! You can then claim the remainder, as you will trump the fourth round of Hearts, and then trump two Diamonds in the North hand, and two Clubs in your hand.
There are some very elegant lines of play that include finessing West's 10 of Spades, ruffing a Diamond in the North hand, and throwing in East with a Club. Special mention goes to Chris Baker, who came up with a forced squeeze play against East in the Diamonds and Clubs. Great work, everyone!
NIL's
Covering Nil
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#1. Protect the nil at all costs. #2. Make sure we get our bid (after nil if p nil) #3. Go for the set. #4 Worry about bags only when we are 400 or better If you are nil or your p is nil and the opponents set you, Look at the bid. Is the bid 10 or more? if the bid is 10 then they just pushed it to 11 bid by making you set and giving you a bag so now you and your p should try and set the Opponents, BUT the person who is nil should be careful not to set their partner in the process because that will cause them to lose more points if they do. If one bid 4 and the other nil the 4 is worth 40, the nil is worth 100. Better to chance setting the 4 and saving the nil. If the nil gets set though, you need to try to make the 4 bid so that instead of -140 it will only be -100 +40 = -60 pts So it won't hurt as bad as it would if both get set. After the 4 bid makes his, The Nil bid that got set, should have his better cards saved back (had been throwing off whimpy cards) and now that p made 4 bid goes to set the opponents if at all possible with his partners help. Many times if The one who bids Nil, bid first, the partner will under bid a bit, knowing he will have to throw away some good cards like kings because he has to cover that nil at any cost. So if the nil gets set, chances are the partner has cards set back to set with too. |
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