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These deals have all been taken from actual Duplicate Spades Tournaments played at www.e-spades.com. Spades is still Spades, but a different type of strategy is required to succeed in duplicate tournaments. In particular, bidders must always be aggressive and should lower their requirements for bidding nil. I have reported the play of the cards as it actually occurred at the table. The skill level of the typical duplicate player is quite strong, but still you will see a quaint mixture of brilliancy and blunder, fortune and folly. I do not apologize for including examples of weak play. Even the best players still make the occasional mistake. They may have lost their count, their concentra- tion, or their minds. In addition, the unfortunate guess or a case of bad luck will always be an integral part of the game. |
| 1 The Joys of Duplicate Spades. In a Duplicate Spades tournament, the same deal is played at every table. One of the pleasures of this format is that you can find out what the other folks have done with the same cards you just held. |
| 2 They Bid Nil? So What! You will not score well in regular Spades by allowing an opponent's nil to succeed, but you can earn a top score in duplicate by ignoring the nil and concentrating on the cover hand. |
| 2 Keep Your Eye on the Ball. A sharp way to shoot for a top score is to outbid the other pairs in your direction. If you make your bid you have the maximum result regardless of the bag situation. |
| 4 Sink the Nil With Your Ace. Every experienced Spades player knows that it is wrong to lead an ace when trying to defeat an opponent's nil bid. But there are exceptions. |
| 5 Out of Whack. Sometimes a results sheet comprised of very similar scores is shaken by the appearance of one far-fetched score that seems to have come from the fourth dimension. |
| 6 BOHICA (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again) Remember the pair that scored 230 points when the rest of the field was allowing both opponents to make their bids? Well, here they are, same tournament, two boards later. |
| 7 How Not to Win at Duplicate Spades. I can't tell you how to win a duplicate tournament, but I can tell you a sure win to lose: underbid. |
| 8 The Mistakes Are There... Waiting to Be Made. Mistakes and bad guesses are a normal part of Spades. Have no shame at all about accepting your opponents' generous gifts. Soon it will be your turn to play Santa. |
| 9 Wait For the 3-Run Homer. You are never out of it in Duplicate Spades. Today's East/West pair had a miserable 33% game after the first three boards, but eventually won the event with a magnificent 65% game. How did they achieve their comeback? |
| 10 A New Low. As Spades players catch on to the extra value of a nil bid in duplicate events, the standards for bidding nil sink lower and lower. Will they ever bottom out? |
| 11 Some things Never Change. Although success in duplicate Spades requires slight differences in strategy from the regular game, some basic concepts will always be the same. Now, if only players knew what they are... |
| 12 A Round of Applause. Too many deals have been presented that accentuate players' mistakes. Thus I am pleased to report now on an exceptionally well-played deal, one that brought down an apparently bulletproof nil bid. |
| 14 A-Counting We Will Go. How important is it to count the cards in every suit? About half the time you can forego this chore and pay no price. But more often than you imagine, a complete count will mean a difference in the result. |
| 15 The Tactical Underbid. In regular Spades there is a little trick known as the Tactical 3rd-Seat Underbid. How useful is it Duplicate Spades? |
| 16 Too Easy. Many card combinations that are remarkably easy on paper can prove far too difficult to solve at the table. |
| 17 Sound Bidding Pays Off. Experienced duplicate Spades players have discovered the importance of aggressive bidding. The tough part is to restrain your aggressive bidding before it becomes crazy, wild-eyed speculative bidding. |
| 18 "We Wuz Robbed!" I have frequently heard a pair complain that their fine bidding and play of a hand yielded only a mediocre percentage result because other pairs (in their direction) brought home a really stupid nil bid. "Terrible nil defense" is their pronouncement. Alas, Spades, like life is not so simple. |
| 19 "No, WE Wuz Robbed!" We saw in the previous hand that one way to overcome an opponent's nil bid is to overbid your hand and concentrate on making your extravagant bid. Lest anyone thinks this method is a panacea for all nil bids, I offer this cautionary example. |
| 20 Standard Leads vs. Do-It-Yourself Leads. If you must start a new suit from Q1064 or even K1064, which card should you lead? I have always maintained that a low card works best. |
| 21 How Could They Possibly Make that Hand? Sometimes the perverse distribution of the cards makes it impossible to land your bid. But when you see the results, you find that other pairs succeeded at the same bid. In fact, they even took overtricks! How could they possibly do it? |
| 22 Old Age and Treachery Beat Youth and Skill. How should you bid after you hear your partner go nil? On this deal, a codger with many years of crafty experience playing duplicate Bridge shows us he can be just as foxy in Spades. |
| 23 Plucked Like a Chicken. You cannot afford to make a mistake against a strong pair. They'll pluck you like a chicken. Or a grape. Or a guitar string, maybe. Oh, choose your own metaphor. In any case, you're plucked. |
| 24 Unlawful to Err. Every experienced Spades player knows the value of leading a long spade suit, a strategy that's sheer poison to intermediate players. But pulling trump is not always the right play. In this deal, curiously enough, the rules of the game prevented a player from guessing wrong. |
| 25 Reading a Hand. Reading a hand is considered an expert's skill, but some hands are remarkably easy to visualize. Do this, and you can play as though the cards were face up on the table. |
| 26 The Freak. Some Spades hands are easy to bid. On certain simple hands I would expect at least 95% of all experienced players to make the same call. Then there are those wild and crazy hands, for which nobody knows what's right. |
| 27 Hide and Seek. Which card do you lead from a side suit headed by the Ace-King? I've long been a champion of the King-lead, as most of you know, but there are still some folks who prefer the Ace. "I don't want to tell the opponents where the King is," they may say. |
| 28 Pack Your Bags. Does duplicate Spades overemphasize the bag (overbook)? Does the -1 penalty for bags have too much impact on the board's outcome? How will an extra bag affect your final standings? Let's examine the bag issue. |
| 29 Over and Under. Another of my pet theories is that you can bid boldly with a good 5-5 hand, but you had better be cautious when you are short in spades. This deal illustrates both points nicely. |
| 30 The Unexpected Trick. You would like to determine at an early stage of play whether you have a realistic chance to set the opponents. A useful device is to watch for the unexpected trick. If the opponents can win an unexpected trick, say a third-round queen or jack, they are unlikely to be set. |
| 31 For the Connoisseur. Standard leads, signaling, ace underleads, splitting honors, unexpected tricks, uppercuts and trump promotions -- how much more adventure can be packed into a single Spades deal?! |
| 32 How Not to Play the 5-5. Doesn't anybody here know how to play the 5-5? North's hand is a monster, but only if played correctly. |
| 33 Excellent Play Anyway. I always try to find deals that highlight excellent play by an individual player or by a pair. It is not as easy as one might think. Too often the post mortem reveals that a top result was achieved by a mixture of good play by one side and a slippage by the other. That's Spades. |
34 Gotcha Again!
North was dealt the  KQ32 and South the AJ, yet between them they
could only manage two trump winners. How could this possibly happen? Herein
lies a tale.
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| 35 Friendly Bug. Many of the frequent tournament players at e-Spades have discovered the following bug in the software. If you are viewing the previous deal using the Replay feature and it is your turn to bid the current deal, clicking on the Close button will register a bid for you! |
| 36 Shine a Light. Your partner means well. He wants to stay on the true path. But it is easy to get lost in the dark. Won't you shine a light for dear Pard? |
Amit Green on DuplicateReady for a fresh opinion? Amit Green, who plays under the cybername of Mixalias, provides us with his own insights of duplicate Spades. |
| 1 Bidding at Duplicate. Aggressive bidding is what makes duplicate fun. Most hands are slightly overbid, and the hands played aggressively (there is very little of the annoying bagging game). However, there is a difference between slightly overbidding, and overbidding too much as this hand shows. |
| 2 Using Signals to Set the Opponents. The games at duplicate are frequently exciting and high voltage, a thirteen bid such as this hand is not at all unusual. Unlike at regular spades, here you can often find partners who will use advanced spades techniques such as signaling and finessing - this makes the games much more interesting. |
| 3 How Duplicate Helps You improve Your Play. Something went wrong, but what? Was it your partner who messed up (as usual) or did you make one of your own (rare) mistakes? The ability to review all hands and submit it to others for comments may be revealing. |
(More Deals from Duplicate under construction.) |
