Score N/S: 256 E/W: 273 Dlr: East K6543 AJ Q32 A64 972 1073 A75 KQ95 QJ10 K9842 KJ94 7 A8 Q65 1086 J10832 South West North East 1      2       5     3

Exhibit #8a. Technique The Play: 1. South leads 6: 7, A, 4. North wins. 2. North leads J: K, 5, 3. East wins. 3. East leads 7: 2, Q, A. North wins. 4. North leads 6: 9, 10, K. West wins. 5. West leads 5: 4, 10, 3. East wins. 6. East leads 9: Q, 10, 2. South wins. 7. South leads A: 2, 3, J. South wins. 8. South leads 8: 9, K, Q. North wins. 9. North leads 4: 8, 10, 7. West wins. 10. West leads A: Q, K, 8. West wins. 11. West leads 5: 3, 4, 6. South wins. 12-13. North takes the last two with spades. Results: Both sides made their bids and North/South were fed both bags. North/South lucked out since East/West failed to find their diamond strength early and failed to manuever for two club cuts. Still, they did not take full advantage of their good fortune. After the heart lead and continuation, how could North/South have set their opponents? Would their plays be Spades-reasonable, or would X-ray vision be required to find the winning line? Submit your e-mail comments to: You Be the Judge

The Public Responds:

This week's cases yielded sharp differences in opinions from our various panelists. Marvelous! Different notions are what makes this feature (and the game of Spades itself) so much fun.

Let's tackle to our first case. North/South did not get the powerful diamond switch at Trick 2. Could they have capitalized on their good fortune with a set? Our first two panelists apparently don't think so, and so they only discuss the earliest plays of the deal.

USA_Justice: I just want to offer a few comments on the opening trick. The opening lead was a good one. The other good lead may have been to try the 2. Sometimes with five cards and a low honor (Q,J), leading that suit can bring good things...

And so USA_Justice goes on to comment at length about North's play of the A rather than the suggested J. I hate to cut short anyone who has put time and effort into an analysis, but our distinguished panelist never got past Trick 1. Since the fun does not start until the middle of the hand, we will let someone else take over.

Brandon: North and South could NOT have set E/W after the 1st two rounds.... [Here Brandon goes into details about the effects of the diamond switch at Trick 2. This is also interesting stuff, but we were asking about the N/S play on the actual hand.] ...No sets, either way.

No set? A couple of panelists think otherwise.

Purple Cow: How could N/S set their opponents? South must retain the A as an entry card to play his established club suit. Let the play proceed as shown to Trick 6 where South wins the Q. South's next lead of the Ace followed by the low spade is ordinary (unblocking), and in most cases would be correct. Here it is not. A low spade to North's King is the winning play. South then wins the spade return with the Ace. South can now play on clubs, giving North two more diamond discards. West gets his spade, but that's all. North takes the last three with trumps. E/W finish with only a heart, club, and two ruffs.

Ruffkid: Yes, the double-dummy [all four hands are visible] line works when you underlead your Ace of spades and get a spade back. You then lead a top club and another top club...matters not when West's nine of spades is played -- all dime winners vanish.

Yes, that's it! The Ace-underlead leaves E/W without recourse. Setsville. But can this play actually be found over-the-table? We asked if the winning line was Spades-reasonable or whether the players needed Xray vision to find it. Here we encounter another sharp difference of opinion.

Ruffkid: It would take Xray vision for most to find this line. I personally would not play spades that way. Pard can hold the 9 and you block the suit by underleading the ace.

Why should South be concerned about the 9 when the locations of the K-Q-J are in doubt? More to the point: even if North is musclebound in spades - as good as KQJ9x -- starting the suit with the Ace fails to set. Only the low-spade lead does the job. So, we ask again: can South really be expected to find the right play at the table?

Purple Cow: Now, is this reasonable? Sure. Anytime you suspect partner has strong spades, and you hold an established side suit, it is vital to retain an entry card. What better entry card is there than the spade Ace?

Compare this to the technique for a 5-5 hand. The difference here is that the long side suit and the long spade suit are shared between the partnership's hands. From this perspective, it is clear that unblocking is not what you want to do. It is imperative to keep lines of communication open after the opponents spades are extracted. This line of play is not difficult to find, but is often missed at the table.

Post Mortem

The theme of this case, underleading the A, really should be familiar to readers of this website. It is the subject of a Spades Strategy article, Control Freak. Sayeth the author, "I should point out that South makes the Ace-underlead play not because he is an expert who can place every card. It is quite the opposite. A player typically makes this play from uncertainty of the position."

This deal actually occurred in a recent online Spades game. It pleases me to report that South did indeed find the winning line, the Ace-underlead at Trick 7. Did N/S set? Well, not quite. North was undisciplined. Guessing that the Ace must be with East, North refused to surrender his K. So... he ducked!

The court acquits South of all charges. If most of the expert judges could not find the winning play after seeing all 52 cards, what could be expected from a player who sees only his own thirteen? Besides, North probably would have screwed it up anyway. You're free to go, friend South.

Exhibit #8b. Strategy The Play: 1. East leads 4: 9, 10, 7. West wins. 2. West leads 3: 6, 5, K. South wins. 3. South leads A: Q, J, 8. South wins. 4. South leads K: 7, 6 5. South wins. 5. South leads 9: 9, 5, 4. West wins. 6. West leads 7: 2, A, 4. East wins. 7. East leads 5: 6, J, Q. South wins. 8. South leads 3: A, 10, 10. East wins. 9. East leads 4: 8, K, Q. West wins. 10. West leads 4: 3, Q, 8. East wins. 11. East leads 2: 10, 7, J. North is set. 12 & 13. West wins the last two with A and 8. The nil has been beaten. North, the defendant, is accompanied by his lawyer who loudly declares, "My client is absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever!" Where have we heard that before? Would you have bid nil with North's cards? What do you have to say about the North/South play? Submit your e-mail comments to: You Be the Judge

Score N/S: 295 E/W: 363 Dlr: North J53 J6 QJ75 Q1062 A974 Q7 AK10 J873 KQ2 10854 643 A95 1086 AK932 982 K4 East South West North 3      3       4     nil

The Public Responds:

Our second case raised still more clouds of dissension among our panelists. Wow! This gets better all the time! We asked first whether North's nil bid was sound.

Silus Aureus: I wouldn't have bid nil unless my partner had bid at least 5 or 6 before me and we desperately needed the points.

USA_Justice: The nil bid is good. North's hand has a very good chance of making nil. However, you must learn how to play a nil hand first.

Purple Cow: Would I have bid nil with the North cards? Mmmm....probably. I don't have any real problem suits except for spades, hearts, and diamonds. The lack of low cards in the red suits is troublesome, and the spades are by no means safe. But trailing by 70 points late, a nil is indeed a reasonable bid with this hand. Leading by 70 points would be an entirely different situation. Time is running out though, and this may be the last chance to play catch up. Nil is a good call.

A good analysis. We also point out that if North takes his only other option, making a 1-bid, his side will be 100 points behind after this hand and running out of room. And so North survives his first judgement, the bidding, by a 2-1 vote. Let's now examine the play. First we have two judges who figure North got his just desserts. The nil cannot be made, they say, and North deserves to be sunk.

USA_Justice: I normally don't send in for both exhibits. I only have time to consider one, usually. However, this is such a HUGE common mistake I had to comment. Nil 101: The idea is to not take a trick. Hello? So, why play higher than the highest card on the table unless you have to? I have never understood this. The times where this can benefit you is so infinitesimally small it's not worth considering. PLAY THE 2!! This is so boneheaded it's pathetic!! Just count the cards. Let's see, I have the 2 and 6, and I see the 3 on the table. So, that means there are only two cards left between the 2 and 6 unaccounted for. So, unless someone's out, West virtually guaranteed me two safe club passages.

Hmmm... Didn't we cover this point in our first set of cases (Exhibit #1B)? I believe the panel concluded that a middle card must be played by the nil hand. But we'll come back to this play later. Anything else?

USA_Justice: Speaking of West... Didn't we learn to not lead the lowest card of a suit, on the first round of that suit, to set a nil? I think North and West need to take up tiddlywinks.

Brandon: Not Guilty! Even a good percentage play occasionally fails. From looking at the cards the nil will be set with 100% certainty if West or South can lead spades two or three times, with East sitting on the 2.

Should North not have discarded the 5 under West's 9 and instead have discarded a high club? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. By discarding the 5 he did make himself vulnerable to the two spade leads. Had North not tossed it and instead tossed a club the nil could still have been set by another spade lead from West or South.

The Lawyer: Motion to dismiss! It is no crime to fail at an unmakable nil bid. There is absolutely nothing whatsover that my client could have done to overcome the distribution of the cards! It was bad luck, nothing more!

Not so fast! We're not finished. Two more panelists think that North misplayed. The first judge speaks tentatively, from intuition, and the second speaks with the certainty of cold, mathematical logic.

Silus Aureus: On Trick 5, I don't think I would have undercut with a low trump. That would only leave me with one other low trump to go along with a high trump. Also, it would have been better to sluff a high diamond or club and weaken those suits.

Purple Cow: I loudly tell the defendant's lawyer to stuff it! The nil bidder must pay attention to what's going on. When South shows up with the K and AK on tricks 2-4, it's safe to assume that's all he has. At this point North should recognize his J as the largest danger in his hand. Looking at South's 3-bid, the only possible spade holdings for South to have to cover the J would be the Qx doubleton, or a stiff K. Neither of these are likely. Best to seek an alternate plan.

Alternate plan: Undertrump West's spade honor! Well that was easy enough. The key is, North must retain both of his low spades to do this. The underruff at Trick 5 was a costly error. If North pitches a diamond or club (both of which look much more attractive than the underruff at this point), he will later be able to park his J under West's A.

Well said, PC. This settles the matter of North's play. The nil should have succeeeded, but he blew it by undertrumping. Now let's revisit the issue of North's club play at Trick 2.

Silus Aureus: On Tricks 2 and 6, North had the chance to get rid of a high club. I would have chosen the 10, playing in second position. It's better to get that out of the way and know ahead if the nil was set.

Ahem. We won't comment on this particular play, but we now know that Silus Aureus and USA_Justice would play better as opponents than as partners. Moving along. Now it's time to call for a verdict.

The court rules that North was correct in bidding nil, but that he then misplayed the cards. Nevertheless, sentence is suspended because most of our panelists could do no better even with all of the cards in view. North is free to go. The lawyer, however, is given a week in the slammer for buffoonery.