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.

When your opponents bid nil, you have several ways to try for a good result. At the extremes you can underbid and go all-out to set the nil, or you can overbid and, ignoring the nil, try to set the cover hand. It's a tough call to make. What's more, a hefty overbid makes it too dangerous to try for the nil set even when it is there.

Q72 1087 KJ93 765 A1063 AKQ 87 AQ43 KJ54 9 AQ1065 K102 98 J65432 42 J98 East South West North 4 nil 7(!) 1 South led the 6

South chose to make a 'duplicate nil' bid, one that would be unthinkable in a regular game of Spades, This action placed the next bidder, West in a bind. Guessing that the nil would likely succeed, he chose to go for the overbid strategy. North could do no more than drop his normal 2-bid to 1.

West won the heart lead and shifted to a diamond. East topped North's K with the A and played Queen and another diamond, trumped by West with the 10. The 6 return saw North's Q fall to the King, and a fourth diamond was trumped with the 3. After East cashed the A he returned a low club. When North played the 5, East could have easily beaten the nil by ducking. Anxious to ensure his side's optimistic bid, however, he covered with the 10. After the J pulled North's last trump, East/West were then able to cash out for all thirteen tricks.

Bidding 11 and setting North's 1-bid gave East/West the fine score of 118 points. It was a next-to-top (another East/West set South's nil). But what of North/South? They made their atrocious nil and lost their 1-bid to rack up 90 points. Incredibly enough, this was the top North/South result -- 100%. I can practiculary hear the anguish from the North/Souths at the other tables: "They actually made that nil?! What terrible nil defense! Any pair of imbeciles could have beaten that nil. We wuz robbed!" As I said, it's not that simple.