How to Use Nil Bids in Spades

Video Transcript

"The bid of nil. Nil is the strongest weapon that you have in the game of spades. By the way, there is another bid called blind nil or double nil. Double nil is a bid designed primarily, and that's not this hand but, double nil is designed primarily to help rescue a lost game. In other words, you're losing by two-hundred points and you throw out what's called a blind nil. Blind nil, forget this hand for the moment, supposing that this was your hand, when you bid a blind nil, you're telling the computer that you're not going to look at your hand but you hope you sure don't have the ace of spades in your hand. Because, if you have the ace of spades, or a bad ace in your hands you're going to get sad instantly. In other words, you don't get to see your cards but you make this attempt to take two-hundred points and if you turn your hand over and you see something like this you say OH MY GOD I'm set. I can not make this nil. So I don't even play games with blind nils. We don't allow them in the tournaments, and I know a lot of people online don't like to use them because, nobody wants to have a game stolen from them because somebody got incredibly lucky. So the blind nil bid is a bit of desperation. A standard nil will award you with one-hundred points if you successfully make that bid. Now let's look at this hand. You do have the ace of clubs but you have three small ones, so the probability of your making this bid are pretty good. Particularly, since you have the deuce and the five and the eight. I mean chances are the opponents, the only way that this bid would be set with this ace is that one opponent would have to have King, Queen, Jack, 10, or something of that ilk. Your partner would have to have four middle spots and he would have to have one in the void and just keeps plowing though the erase. Chances are that your partner will be trumping the fourth round of this suit. This heart set is completely safe. The singles and diamond is good. The only risk factor in this nil is this kind of spades. The fact that you have two smaller spades with it is very encouraging because, either your partner could have the Jack, Queen, King, or Ace of spades, which is about eighty-five percent probability. There's just so many probabilities in the game. By the way, the higher your partner bids the more likely that he has the trump. If your partner is bidding six."