Nil Reversals in Spades

Video Transcript

or even the king of spades and we can just put that as a substitute, not together, we never bid nil with the king of spades. Your partner either holds this combination or this combination, you know, we'll even say the king. And it goes five here and two here, and let's just say the rest of your partner's hand is completely safe. Let's say the hearts and the clubs are nice and low, and comfy. But, he's six times in diamonds. A lot of players not using big five would back off from this nil bid, cause they're afraid of the ace of spades. After all, it's only one out of three chance I have the ace of spades. Why one out of three? Well, either he has it, I have it, or he has it. When your partner knows that you hold the ace of spades, he can bid this nil, if he's safe in the other suits in complete confidence, cause he knows that you're going to cover him. That's the beauty of the big five. Now, let's couple that with what we call nil signals to show a reverse discard. I happen to be on lead in this hand. I really don't want to clean out my clubs right away, because I don't want to be forced to be trumping spades. My hearts are, ah, they're okay. I don't want to explore this suit because in case my partner has a hanging jack. I'm going to lead my strongest suit in covering the nil, so I'm going to lead the king. Well, normally my partner would throw the nine, but instead, he decides to play the five. Why a low card? Well, I'm going to come to that. Say my king goes through and now I play the queen, well; it's not likely, but if the king goes through it goes through. It really doesn't matter. The next time around, I play the seven, so my partner sees why did I play the five and then the seven. It's a reverse, I'm telling my partner I'm okay in diamonds, he's telling me don't keep leading diamonds. I don't need help in diamonds. I've got diamonds up the ying- yang. So, what I want you to do is maybe shift to another suit, because I don't need help in diamonds. Again in summary, hit the big five when you've got four to six tricks in the ace or king of spades, cause you'll be able to cover ace or king of spades. Now, if I had the king of spades, he wouldn't have the ace, he wouldn't bid nil with the ace. So, it promises ace or king of spades and coverage for a bad spades suit, that's all it promises. It doesn't promise I can save him in clubs, it gives him reassurance and when a partner plays the suit low to high, when you're leading a high card in nil, you're telling him I don't need coverage in that suit. Very useful conventions check them out.

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