Just about every spades player I have encountered who was worth two cents will occasionally make non-standard or unusual bids. Some of these bids are simply a mild underbids while others are so bizarre chills go up my spine such as a double nil in first position. While we still have ample opportunity to win without these deviations I have found that it is a trait that all really good players possess. These offbeat bids, if you will, should be a part of any successful player's entourage. The real trick is to know when to use them.

Many seat-of-the-pants bidders simply make these bids when the mood feels right, or the table presence they have is screaming to do so. We all have these urges, or gut feelings and many times it is right to follow them. I'm not advocating a switch here. What I am saying is that a better method may exist. In previous articles I have talked about percentages. This is what I am again talking about here. We want to take actions that high a high degree of success and make these bids of ours, our gut actions, winning percentage actions.

Most of these wild bids we make are due to a simple concept. It is generally referred to as "taking a position." When we take a position about the bidding or play we sometimes have strong table feels that we cannot ignore. Some of these actions can turn out quite badly if we assume incorrectly. Most of the time we will have some reason for making a bid such as a double nil, for example, when the opponents have bid 11 or 12, or underleading an Ace to try to steal a trick when you think the opponent to your left holds the King. Every one of these actions can backfire. The only way we can possible condone the use of them is if we think that they work many more times than not.

Can we improve on these chances that we take? I think the answer to that question is yes. The real key is in making bids or plays that have two ways to win. Good gamblers have been doing this for years. It becomes very important for a bid that is offbeat or risky to have two chances to win, and also just as important that our bids do not give the opponents two chances to get ahead here.

The real clue here is timing! How do we know when to make some of these unorthodox bids? The answer is not as difficult as it seems. We need to make them only when everything else is this hand is perfect for the bid. Not just one facet, but everything else. If anything else is the least bit wrong ignore the urge and go with a more conservative approach. If you do not, you give the opponents ammunition to put you in the very same position, two ways to win. Those hands that contain more than one irregularity are just too risky and have too many flaws for nils, dnils, 12-bids, etc.

Consider a shaky 7-bid which, by agreement, encourages pard to dnil. Who will be on opening lead? Pay very close attention to the bidding. Are you the first to bid, or the second to bid? What did your right-hand opponent bid, and how long did it take him to bid it? Bids of 3 and 4 after hesitations may indicate shortness, or they may indicate question about bidding on Kings. Very quick bids may indicate the presence of natural trump tricks and Aces.

It is equally important to consider going set on your bid when you know you can cover a dnil. This is something I frequently do. I will go set all day on hands that I should not bid more than 5 or 6 if I can get a dnil from pard that has a very reasonable chance of success. Consider the fact that I have bid 7 in second seat after a 2-bid on my right. I have a shaky 5 bid at best but it is a very reasonable hand for covering a dnil. It is a hand that we feel can work 80% of the time or better. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that we both go set, say -272. If that does happen more than 1 time out of 10 attempts you are certainly dnilling way too often.

The point is that with your 7-bid the opponent on your left is going to bid lower then his hand is actually worth. He has no clue that you are on a shaky 5-bid. Most of the time people take two or three tricks more than the 7 that were bid -- lol. With a bid of 2 or 3 on my right and a good 4-5 bid in my hand that will absolutely cover pards spades things start to look pretty good. We have a few different ways to win. I can go set on my bid but protect the dnil and gain well over 100 points while prompting the opponents to bid less and bag if they set me. The truth is that most of the time I make these 7-bids on 5-bid hands because the opponents are so friendly -- throwing everything off trying to set my pard.

The thing to consider on a bid like this is the intermediate spots as well as the spades. The other major dice-loading element is the opening leader. Hopefully it is not you. The other redeeming factor would be distributional hands. If you are highly distributional and two-suited, pard is probably distributional and so is everyone else.

These hands present even more protection for your side when your pard may be able to get off to a quick singleton lead that you can win and continue the suit giving him key pitches very early in the hand.

Another area in which we can load the dice (and I must admit it is a pet peeve of mine) involves nil bids by the opponents. Can we load the dice in our favor on these hands? Sure we can, at least on some of them. A good time for this will occur when the opponent that goes nil does so after his pard has bid. Remember, when the nil bidder's pard bid, he did not know that he was covering a nil.

Generally in first position to bid we bid our hands pretty close. I despise hands that my pard will underbid by 3 or 4 tricks to give us plenty of room trying to set the nil bidder, when it was the nil bidder's pard we should be after all along. As a good guideline, use a 4-bid by the nil bidder's pard as the time to go for a set. In the last position to bid add at least two tricks minimum to your hand, maybe more. Give yourself not more than two tricks between you and the opponents, an 11-bid minimum. Many times it will be more. You will know the hands when you get them that should have more than an 11-bid.

When the nil bidder's pard bids 4 or more and we underbid our hands by three tricks trying to set the nil we put all of our eggs in just one basket. We either set the nil or we don't, generally eating three or more bags too along the way. Many more times than I would like to remember I have missed easy sets of the nil bidder's pard. We feed him all the tricks he needs trying to get the minus 100 pts. Consider what we give up trying to do this. We lose the 30 points that we did not bid bagging for the nil set, we lose the 40 points or more from the nil bidder's pard, and we gain another 30 pts from potential bag tricks. Guess what -- that is the 100 points we were after in the first place! The other thing we lose is time. Our score is lower because of this underbid on our part.

You can load the dice tremendously on these kinds of hands by treating the nil bidder's pard as though he is a baseball player that has been caught off base. You have him in the "hot box"; he is running back and forth from base to base trying for a safe haven but you keep hounding him. How do you do this? You lead small and intermediate cards through him pushing him to jump up to cover his pard. Your pard's leads should be very passive in suits that he is weak in and you are strong. Now your pard leads his weak suit through the nil bidder and you have the option of playing high. The nil bidder's pard cannot jeopardize the nil and must play a lower card to protect his pard.

Better than 75% of the time I set on these hands. Usually we bid to 7 or 8. If the opponent's nil is successful they get set -41 on the bid and acore 100 for the nil, netting them a whopping 59 pts. Now we usually end up with something like 73, or 82. This is the equivalent of at least a break-even score. I'll take that any day on a laydown nil. If I can break even on 50% of your successful nils I will beat you in the long run. I will get my share of nils and bid them. Far too many points are being lost on useless tries of laydown nils against good opponents. I think you should still try for the nil set, but do it with flair and finesse.

We know how to bag within one trick. Why can't we be willing to try it in this scenario? I do it every day and get chastised by very poor players for being out of my mind. I've been a gambler for along time and I like my odds much better than the other method of bidding low and trying to set a nil in this position.

These are but two ways you can load the dice and give yourself additional ways to win on your bids and plays. Many others exist; it is merely up to you to look for them, and ways to make win-win situations occur at the table.

Regards,
Ruffkid1 (Jay Tomlinson)