You were EUCHRED on a lone call?

So was I, just look at this hand.

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In this hand, I'm sitting in South position and turned up the 10 of clubs. Bidding is passed back around. I pick up the 10 and discard a junk card. Then I call 'alone'.

WOW, you say, what a nice hand! Well no, I was euchred. Here's how it played out. West seat leads the Ace of diamonds, The east seat throws off a ten of spades and I trump the ace with a 10. So far, so good. Now I lead back the right. The east seat plays the 9 of spades, West seat plays 9 of trump. Perfect, Next I play the ace of trump. East seat takes my ace with the left and leads back the king of trump. Well, you can see what happens next....

The moral of the story is that you can be euchred on all most any hand. Sometimes even a great hand doesn't work. However, frequently passing is a sure way to lose. You have to keep trying..... If you are euchred, just shake it off and get ready for the next hand.

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Response from our readers:

Charlie wrote..
At trick three you know that there are still two trump out and that they form a tenance over your trump. Play your ace of hearts. If it holds you have your point secured and then lead trump looking for all five tricks. If it is trumped, then you will have two trumps left. You run the risk of losing your four points to a doubleton trump and a void in hearts, but if East has the doubleton trump the odds of a heart void are low. If East is void of hearts, then the odds of having three trump go up (as is the case here), and as we see, playing the HA is the only way to make the contract. The hand was misplayed.

Big Chris Wrote...
Playing the heart ace at trick 3 is not more correct than club ace. Both lines are equally good.
The heart ace line gains over the club ace only when East holds exactly all 3 missing trump and 2 spades where you lose control. He will hold that hand only 0.086% of the time (3C3*5C2/19C5). In this case the gain is turning -2 into +1, for a +3 point swing. The heart ace line loses over the club ace when East holds exactly 2 trump, neither one being the left, and 3 spades. He will hold that hand also 0.086% of the time (2C2*5C3/19C5). This loss turns +4 into +1, for a -3 point swing. This is a wash, so both lines are equally good.

Kien wrote..
Just a different perspective on this. Your hand ended up in euchre and you may have avoided the euchre, but I would say that your play may have still been correct given the right circumstances. Take the case that you don't really know what exactly is in your opponent's hands. I think taking the risk of a euchre would be acceptable if your team had 6-7 points and your opponents had less than 4 or perhaps were already at 9.

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Don's reply
Playing the Ace of hearts on third trick may have been the better play. Guess I just never thought that I could get euchred on such a nice hand. Just goes to show that in this fast-moving game there is no time to recover from a mistake. My first mistake was not stopping to realize there may still be cards out against me. My second was just accepting that the hand had beat me, and not looking to see if it could have been played differently. Thanks for pointing this out to me.