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. This specimen came up in the last round of an 8-table game.

AKQ1093 7 AKQJ42 -- J AQ10942 98 AQ64 8654 63 1075 K985 72 KJ85 63 J10732 South West North East nil nil 12 nil West led the 4

South's hand is borderline for nil in the regular game, but nil is certainly worth a shot in a duplicate contest. The same is true for West. Now what does North do with his monster? Your guess is as good as mine -- maybe better. At one table North bid 12, and his partner told him he could click the Undo icon to correct his mistake.

I'm not going to try to analyze this one. I'll simply show you the bidding that actually occurred at the eight tables.

That 1-bid at Table 6 is not a typo. Apparently North read somplace about a manuever called the Third-Seat Underbid.

As for the play, we note that South's nil is solid. North can easily set a nil by East in either diamonds or spades, and can do so at no risk to his partner. North will take at least eleven tricks, and possibly all 13 if the opponents let his 7 hold. Are you curious about the results? As the following table shows, they're all over the map.

We note that the best East/West scores went to those pairs who bid a lowly nil+1. As I have pointed out elsewhere, you can win at duplicate even when you are dealt terrible cards. Duplicate Spades is certainly a test of skill. But it can also have its wacky moments.