Nil Bid Rules in Spades

How a Nil bid works

When it is your turn to bid, you may bid a number from 1 to 13 or you may bid Nil. Nil means you will take zero tricks in the coming hand. You still play every trick normally, following suit when you can and leading spades only once they have been broken (or when you hold nothing else); the only difference is your goal, which is to lose all 13 tricks.

• A made Nil scores 100 for your team, on top of whatever your partner scores for their own bid.
• A failed Nil loses 100. One trick is enough to fail it; taking three is no worse than taking one, except for the bags.
• Your partner bids and is scored alone. If North bids 4, North must take 4 tricks personally. Your tricks, if you take any, do not help.
• Your tricks are bags. On CardCouch every trick a Nil bidder takes is added to the team's bag count. Ten bags cost 100, so a failed Nil can hurt twice.

There is no blind Nil on CardCouch. In some rule sets a player far behind may declare Nil before looking at their cards for 200 points; here you always see your hand first, and Nil is always worth 100.

Hands that can go Nil

A Nil hand is one that can duck every trick. Look for:

• Few and low spades. Zero to three spades, none above the 9. Spades are the danger suit because you cannot throw them away: if spades are led and you must follow, a high spade wins. A 4♠ and 7♠ are fine; a J♠ is not.
• No Aces and, ideally, no Kings. An Ace takes a trick the first time its suit is led unless you are already void. A King is caught only if the Ace is played before it, which you cannot control.
• Long, low suits. Five hearts from the 2 to the 9 are a safe place to hide: whenever hearts are led you have a lower card to play. A suit like Q-J-10 is the opposite, it wins tricks against low leads.
• A void or singleton with low spades. When that suit is led you can throw away a dangerous card from another suit — the choice of discard is yours, so you are never forced to ruff. The one danger is running out of side-suit cards: with nothing but spades left you must trump, and a trump wins.

A textbook Nil: 6♠ 3♠, 9♥ 8♥ 5♥ 4♥ 2♥, 8♦ 6♦ 3♦, 10♣ 7♣ 4♣. No card above a 10, two low spades, and a long heart suit to hide in. A near miss: the same hand with K♣ instead of 4♣. Once clubs have been led three times that King has to be played, and it can easily be forced to win; opinions differ on whether the hand is still a Nil, and a bid of 1 is the safe call.

Score also matters. Well behind, a made Nil is the fastest way back and is worth a slightly riskier hand. Well ahead, take the sure 1 or 2 tricks and let the opponents gamble.

Playing a Nil hand

• Follow suit with the highest card that still loses.If a Queen has been played and you hold the Jack and 3, play the Jack: it is the more dangerous card and this is a safe moment to get rid of it.
• When you cannot follow suit, throw your most dangerous side-suit card — usually your highest. Never throw a spade unless a higher spade is already on the trick: a spade played on a side-suit lead is a trump, and it wins.
• Avoid leading a suit you are long in unless every card is tiny. Lead singletons and doubletons to become void as early as possible.
• Lead your lowest card of a suit when you must lead; lead the suit your partner seems strongest in so they can win it.

Covering your partner's Nil

When North bids Nil, your job is to win any trick your partner would otherwise be forced to take. Play high cards early, not late: lead your Aces and Kings so North can play their dangerous cards under them, and play over any card of North's that might be winning. If North plays a Jack and you hold the Queen, play it even if the Jack looked safe, because you cannot see West's hand.

Keep spades to ruff with. A Nil partner who must follow a spade lead is in trouble, so try to win spade tricks yourself and to lead spades only when you can win them. A suit your partner has shown void in is usually a good lead: they can throw a dangerous card away on it — unless their only cards outside that suit are spades, in which case they would be forced to trump.

Remember the maths: your own bid is judged on your tricks alone, and an extra trick costs you at most one bag. A set Nil costs 100. When protecting the Nil and protecting your bid conflict, protecting the Nil is usually right.

Defending against a Nil

The 100 points are yours if the Nil bidder wins one trick, so every play should aim at their hand rather than at winning tricks.

• Lead low. A 4 or 5 forces the Nil bidder to follow, and if their lowest card in the suit is a 7 they take the trick unless their partner can climb over it.
• Find their long suit and lead it repeatedly. Once the covering partner is out of that suit, the Nil bidder is on their own.
• Once spades are broken, lead a low spade if you can afford to and you suspect the Nil bidder holds a middling spade. Spades cannot be discarded when they are led.
• Never win a trick the Nil bidder is already winning.If they are forced to play a Queen and you hold the King, play a low card and let them have it.
• Do not throw your own bid away. Setting the Nil is worth 100 to you; if the Nil is already safe, go back to making your own bid.

The computer players on CardCouch bid Nil on suitable hands, and on Medium and Hard they cover a partner's Nil and defend against yours, so you will meet both sides of this regularly.