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I hate playing nil with 4 spades. I dont think its good when the game is not ending soon.
This hand is a good 1 bid with 0 bags as well. So most of the time when the score is even, I like to play 1 here and wait for a better day.
However, when youre already at 300 points, it can be unlikely that the bags will be punished later.
After all there is no perfect play. 50/50 you will win/lose the nil.

I feel many players underestimate how risky 4 spades nils are.

Your 4 leaves 9 total for the other players. That means an average of only 3 spades for everyone else (and your partner). Even when somebody does have 4 or more spades. It's not likely they will still have them all when you need them. Obviously opponents often try to get rid of trumps, but your partner also might trump in another suit to cover you.

If the spades distribution is in your favor, and/or you have early voids in other suits to hopefully dump a trump with. That can up your chances significantly. But in your example you have no info on other player's bids, and your earliest void will take two tricks to open up. So you don't have much to your advantage.

It's risky. In this case, one thing I wouldn't be too worried about is my partner trumping in another suit. The lack of hazard cards in the side suits would likely become apparent quickly.

it all depends on the situation and table position in most cases.

the less JQKA you have in your hand..the more likely the other 3 players will be bidding 11-13 as a total...

so if the table is a 12 bid...your nil is much easier to be made because the opps have to worry about getting set.

obviously if your p bids 0-1 it can be problematic.....

but if the guy in front of you bids 5+ then he might have no choice but to cover you.

if the game is even or you are behind, the nil should be bid.

if you are up by 200...then you should look at the context.

FrankJones wrote: ↑12 February 2026, 17:34 It's risky. In this case, one thing I wouldn't be too worried about is my partner trumping in another suit. The lack of hazard cards in the side suits would likely become apparent quickly.

Not necessarily, if only relatively low cards are lead in a suit, it's not clear if you have any higher ones left.

Maybe the opponents are holding on to a king or ace even, and your p doesn't know if you might have it

KatThePlumThief wrote: ↑13 September 2025, 19:27 What are you doing with this hand? I'm just curious what other players would bid because I've seen some pretty strong opinions on what to do with a hand like this. Assume you're the first bidder
https://ibb.co/gZ3b1MJ4

It's a nil bet if the spread of the score is ~60 -~150 in either direction, due to the risk/reward. You are more likely to get stuck with the 4th spade than you are to dump it (from a probability standpoint); however the difference in getting 10 p vs 100 p makes it worth it in the above score range. At least that is what the math says. Also depends on your p; if you have one of the "i'm the greatest, read my blog" players, have to consider what happens the ~55% of the time you get stuck with the 4th spade.

What did you do and what was the outcome?

cosdogg wrote: ↑18 February 2026, 21:12 however the difference in getting 10 p vs 100 p makes it worth it in the above score range.

I would like to add that 10 vs 100 points seems like a great deal, but it's the best case scenario as it were, and almost never the actual ratio in practice.

you might bid more than 1 .

As with the example from the post, if you're bidding first, your p likely bids 1, or even 2 lower.
While the opponents might bid several tricks higher.

And, defending a nil it's very likely your p ends up with lots of extra bags, which are hard to quantify points wise, but definitely matter here.

This is all situational. all together can add up to a effective difference of up to 50/100 or 60/100 That's extreme cases, but I think it's fair to say they'll average out to at least bring you closer to 30p vs 100p than 10/100 in the majority of hands. Which is a significant difference.

And that's assuming you win the nil. The flip side of this is that a lost nil. Has a higher cost than a won nil has in reward.
Even at 10/100, a lost nil costs you - 110 points over no nil. While a won nil is only an extra 90.

And that effect is more extreme the higher the "no nil" value. 20p difference at 10/100, 40p at 20/100. Even at just that 30/100, you're 're risking almost twice what you stand to gain. (-130 vs +70).

So for your average nil, you'd need your chance of succes above 66% to even break even. And even at 75% win chance your expected gain averages to only 20 points per nil.