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In the game of Spades, the variant "Suicide" means that each partnership must have one partner that bids Nil while the other partner bids 4 or more. This is one of the most popular variants (after the normal partnership game), it is mentioned as a popular variant at pagat, and at Quora, you can play it online at vipspades and at Spades. It appear as one out of the five modes for the game at vipspades: enter image description here

there are two sub-variants:

  1. The second partner must bid different from the first partner, thus if first partner bid nil, second partner must bid 4+, while if first partner bid 4+ then second partner must bid Nil.

  2. The second partner can change the bid of the first partner. That is to say, if the second partner bid the same as the first partner then the bid of the first partner changes to the opposite (0/4+). To be more precise, if the first partner bid Nil, second partner can either bid 4+ or bid Nil and change first partner's bid into 4. If the first partner bid 4+, then the second partner can either bid Nil, or bid 4+ and change first partner's bid into Nil.

My question is, what are the main strategy differences from regular partnership Spades in the first sub-variant? To be specific, I would like to know:

  1. How to adjust my bid as the first partner to bid
  2. How to adjust my bid as the second partner to bid
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  • It seems pretty obvious that there is no "strategy difference". Once the bids are done, then it doesn't matter what contrived method you used to get there - make your bid, and set your opponents. As for what formulas you should use to come up with your bids in this variant, I doubt there is a critical mass of players/research. – The Chaz 2.0 Sep 15 at 15:53
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    I suspect you have not played this variant enough to be so determinant about the answer. There is huge strategy difference. For example: since bids are restricted, the nilers are usually vulnerable. The sitting order of the nilers is very important: the first niler has the advantage since her partner will know if she should cover her or duck if the opponent niler is winning. – Cohensius Sep 15 at 21:21
  • You can try this variation at play.google.com/store/apps/… then you might reconsider your comment and the down vote for the question. – Cohensius Sep 15 at 21:30
  • Another difference is that total bids is usually low (8-10) since two hand are forced to bid 0. Still, even a total bids of 8 has a set potential. – Cohensius Sep 16 at 7:31
  • For people in the Queue, this Question looks like it is no longer too broad after the edit and was appropriately re-opened – Malco 16 hours ago

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