A good nil hand with Aces in Spades

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

It's usually safe to count on the Aces in your hand to take a trick, but sometimes you won't want to. In the picture below, I'm planning to bid nil, even though I have 2 Aces in my hand.

With 5 clubs and 5 diamonds, I'm "long" in the suits where I have Aces. On average, each suit is led about 3 times in a hand (with an unusual spread of the cards, it could be more or less). Other players hold most of the high clubs and diamonds, so chances are good that I can keep "ducking" without ever being forced to play an Ace. Once I'm void in another suit that's led, I can discard my Aces on it. For example, the first two heart tricks will pull the 3 and 5 of Hearts from my hand and leave me void in hearts. Then I can discard an Ace on the third heart trick.

I'm "short" in spades and hearts, but that's okay. The 2 of Spades is no danger, since it will be whisked away the first time spades are led. My hearts are probably safe too, since they're quite low.

As the dealer, I'm in a pretty good position. I know everyone else's bid. My opponents didn't know mine when they made theirs, so they bid without planning to set a nil. They may care more about making their own bid than about setting my nil.

If my opponents play low cards to try to make me take a trick, my partner can play higher cards to help me avoid that. This is called "covering".

Bidding nil is almost always a risk. In the picture below, I have the same hand as above. It looks safe enough. But I got set on the very first trick because of an odd distribution of the cards. My partner has no clubs to cover me (and can't play a spade on the first trick). West, my right-hand opponent, is void in clubs too. So I'm forced to take the trick!

The nil bid is a powerful tool for winning the game, since it gives your team 100 points. But you may go a whole game without getting a hand that suits a nil bid. And if your nil bid fails, your team loses 100 points.