Always bid 2 on KQ2. Even if your king is gobbled by the ace, this can promote p's Jxx for a replacement trick, or J10xx to two trump tricks. As for how you will win 2 tricks with KQ2, it's all a matter of opportunity. There's nothing special about that trump holding.

Normally you do not trump in second position, and don't do it here. Give Pard a chance to win the Q. Exception: If Pard threw x and then Q, he may have had a doubleton, too. In that case your side gets a ruff-and-sluff. The ruff should be taken by the partner who has shorter trump. That's you. If you do trump, trump small.

You've answered your own questions, and very nicely at that. You avoid trumping in 2nd position and you avoid trumping from a holding with a natural trump trick(s).

You mentioned the chance that Pard may hold the king. Well, he just may have begun with KQJx, or KJ10x, or even just Kx, and he is licking his chops at the heart lead and continuation -- until you screw it up by trumping. Take the discard instead, and you may even get a second or third useful discard.

Not trumping will be the best play 90% of the time. The other 10% it will be inferior. There are plenty of folks who always make the 10% play -- and scream at their expert partners who know better. That's one of the charms of Spades (lol).

Whoa! Let's not confuse two situations. If there is no nil bid, it is common to lead a doubleton and the Standard Lead Convention is to start with the higher card. Now let's get back to nil.

First we must ask why you are leading from 102 anyway? Haven't you anthing better? We have to assume you have a problem elsewhere and are anxious for a pitch on the third round of hearts. Well, go ahead and lead the 10. If Pard can't cover, you'd be set in hearts later on.

The same is true if a heart lead came from your right. If Pard can't cover the ten, it hardly matters which one you play. You might as well play the ten. The odds of Pard having a small singleton are slim, but still less than LHO having only one, two, or three honors with no small card.

It does not pay for 2nd hand to cover a jack.

This is an above-average lead. Since you did not bid on the K, you are treating it as an ordinary singleton. Your side gets an extra trick if Pard has the ace, and also if he has the queen (which he did not bid either).

This is a fine lead if RHO has bid only 1, or has used up all of his count cards. Read Popsicle's fine article on this topic (Away From the Ace) in Master Spades Strategy.

If the nil is on your left, face it. You are not going to set the nil in hearts. Attack a different suit. Save the AK to (1) win tricks when cover hand plays Q and J, and (2) as entries to continue your attack in the other suits before cover hand gets his own defenses rolling.

Play low. Expect the ace to appear on this round.

This is an easy one. Insert the queen. If it wins, switch. The second round of the suit will be the tough one, but you'll worry about that later.

Lead a spade. You gotta take out the enemy trumps before they can hurt you by cross-ruffing or otherwise making their spades separately. A good partner will help by gaining the lead and playing a second round. Even if you only get off one round of spades, it may be enough to do sufficient damage. Occasionally the cards will lie bad for you (the 90%-10% idea again) but the odds still favor leading a spade.

Sure, if you have no choice. But it is much better strategy to try to set them. This may mean that your team will take bags, but a set is worth more than a few bags. If it is apparent that your opponents are underbidding, then your team will turn around and give them bags instead of trying for the set.

There are at least eleven Standard Methods of defeating a nil bid. I review them all in my new book, "Master Spades." For now, I can give you a simple valuable piece of advice. The defender sitting behind the nil should open a new suit with his second-lowest card in that suit. For example, if you are on lead with the Q862, lead the 6, not the 2.

Maybe so, but you seldom see it. What you always see instead is a speculative gambling approach. A player assumes that the other team cannot be beaten and also that his partner will surely produce the tricks that he bid. This method usually works fine as long as the other team plays the same way, but is a recipe for disaster against an aggressive pair.

The true skill in bagging is in knowing when to switch, in mid-hand, from aggressive play to bagging, or to continue to play for the set. There are ways to know how to do this, but very few Spades players use this approach.

Use a search engine to find a card counter, if you must. I hope I can talk you out of it. Anyone who relies on card-counting software will never, never develop the card skills to become a good player.

Cheating? No, it's pitiful. Playing Spades using a card-counting program is like entering a cycling race with training wheels -- it is an admission that you're not in the same league as the rest of the competitors. Practice your own counting; it's really not that hard to do.

There would have to arise a National or International organization, supported by dues-paying members, that everyone recognizes as the game's authority. This organization would sanction tournaments, provide rankings, determine national or international champions, and write up and interpret the rules of the game.

Nearly every other widely-played sport or game has such an organization. There have been several attempts to create one for Spades but so far the players themselves have shown little interest or support.

One such attempt is the North American Spades Players Association, directed by Kary Kost. Click here for more information. NASPA.

There is plenty of space devoted to basic bidding on this website, particularly in the Spades Courses and Rate Your Game features. New bidding theories appear in Spades Strategy.

In general, I have found that most players catch on to bidding quickly enough and are weakest in the play of the cards. Of what use is it to encourage Spaders to use strong, aggressive bidding if a player cannot handle the cards well enough to bring home those extra tricks? It is for this reason that I emphasize card play. There is no other place on the web for spaders to learn how to improve their play.

This is a fine idea. You are describing a very powerful hand and it is quite likely you have a set coming up. There are a couple of warnings about underbidding, however.

First, this strategy is most effective when you are in third bidding position. You want to bring pressure to bear on the last bidder. When you bid in second position, the opponents will simply make their normal bids regardless of what you do. When you are in first position there is too great a chance of someone bidding nil. Whether it is your partner or the opponents who nil, you will likely not set anyone and just be forced to eat all those extra bags.

Second, you must have an aggressive partner. Too many players treat all 11-bids as bagging situations. Underbid and you risk the agony of watching Pard dump high cards from the outset, overtake your winners, and duck tricks to the opponents. Still, under the proper conditions, your underbid strategy is the right idea.

We are dealing with four separate and distinct cases. First we will consider non-nil hands. Here we have (a) leading the suit and (b) playing in third position. In these two cases you want to reveal your cards to your partner who is then better placed to make a smart decision. This is not the time for deception.

When you lead the suit, lead the top card of an honor sequence. Let's see some examples. You are South, below.

Example 1. North A5 West K9 East 86432 South QJ107

Example 2. North K West A953 East 7642 South QJ108

In Example 1, you must lead the Q. When West refuses to cover with the K, North plays low. Your side has just trapped West's King.

The Q is also the right card to lead in Example 2. West will take his Ace and may return the suit. Thanks to your informative lead, your partner cleverly knows not to cut, taking a discard instead. In both examples, if you had started the suit with any other card, your partner would probably do the wrong thing... and it would be your fault!

When you are third to play, it is correct to play the lowest of touching honors. This card suggests to your partner you may have higher ones. The play of the top card absolutely denies the next-lower honor.

Example 3. North KQ West 73 East A982 South J10654

South breaks spades with the 4 and promptly leads the 5. If North plays the K, South "knows" an opponent has the Q, and may lead the J next time, or not lead spades at all. Either choice is bad.

North should play the Q. This move cannot guarantee the King, but leaves open that possibility. Now when South regains the lead he may make the correct lead of a low spade.

Finally, there are the two nil situations. Whether you (c) play the cover or (d) are trying to set, you are essentially in a one-on-one situation -- you versus a single opponent. Your partner will do the right thing no matter what, so it is time for deception.

Example 4. North - nil 53 West 6 East A10872 South KQJ94

West leads the 6 to the Ace and the 2 comes back. If you (South) play the King, West will surely cut and will switch to a more dangerous suit. But suppose you play the J. West may believe he has caught North with Qx, Qxx, or even Kxx, and will discard. You win and are able to get off a third round of diamonds, giving your partner a vital pitch.

The last case involves the lead of a low card by the nil defenders. Technically, the advice is to lead the second-lowest card of the suit. This has several advantages over leading the lowest card, including deception, and is discussed in detail in the book Master Spades.

This is still a controversial matter. Many players insist the Ace is the better lead. Since most Spades players slap down both honors 1-2, it matters not which they play first. Those who prefer the Ace-lead usually defend their choice with, "so Partner knows not to cut."

The King-lead works better for stronger players who will lead one of their honors and then consider a switch to another suit, sometimes after getting a low-card signal from their partner. Now the location of the Ace is not in doubt. Of course, if an opponent wins your King with the Ace, Pard knows you must have led from King-Queen. There is no ambiguity.

Whichever system you prefer, Ace- or King-leads, never cut your partner's King-lead. Take a discard instead. Trumping one's partner's King is the mark of an inexperienced player.

The case you presented is fairly common. If the opponents have nearly all of the high cards plus the top spades, then you and your partner will both have nil or near-nil hands. Whoever bids first will bid go nil, and this hand may not be the better nil hand of the two.

At your turn, look at your cards. Bid a second nil only if you have a solid, near-perfect nil hand, such as the one that you described to me. With any sort of a flaw, make a simple 1-bid instead and hope the opponents will be too worried about their own bid to try very hard to set your pard. As long as your pard makes his nil, the opponents cannot gain much ground on this hand.

Double nil is for losers. Remember, you have not seen your cards yet. You may very well have a good enough hand to save your partner's nil, and that is all you need to do to stay even. You may even have enough to set the opponents, too.