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. East and West apparently adopted this strategy from the opening gun.

62 976 Q86 J9865 KJ83 Q532 AJ K103 94 A8 K97542 A42 AQ1075 KJ104 103 Q7 South West North East 4 5 nil 3 West led the 3

West's 5-bid was certainly a stretch, but he knew his partner was a strong player who seemed always able to wring out extra tricks from the cards. East won the opening heart lead with the A and returned a heart to South's K. A third heart went to West as East discarded the 4. When the J held the next trick, West cashed his Ace and played the 3.

In with the A, East led the K. South trumped with the 7 but was overtrumped with the 8. West led his last heart and East carefully trumped with his low spade. The 7 held the next trick as everyone shed clubs. Another diamond forced South, down to only the AQ105, to trump. The 10 held (North throwing the 6) as West dropped his last club. These were the last three cards:

2 -- -- 65 KJ3 -- -- -- 9 -- 4 2 AQ5 -- -- --

South had won only two tricks so far. Needing two more and suspecting West of holding the KJ9, South made the reasonable play of the 5. But East won with the key 9 and South could only make the spade Ace at the finish. The set plus their 8-bid earned East/West a top score.