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Quiz Question 6

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2019 8:02 pm
by Richardb02
Is incorrect. - 20 % of all Participants also missed this one
The Question Was - The score is 6 to 6. You hold the following cards in your hand. You sit in the first seat King of Hearts is the up card. Do you pass or order?
Click HERE for help with this question
In the help section:
When should I name trump, Part 1
You're in 1st Seat: (First Round)
A general guideline) Bid, if you hold any 2 trump, with 2 or more off suit aces.

I answered Bid which agrees with this general guideline.
The correct answer is Pass.
Please advise.

I enjoy your website. Not all answers are clear cut. Thank you.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:03 pm
by irishwolf
Ask yourself Richard, what is your reasoning for ordering vs passing based on your hand. You have two trumps - there are four unknown. Dealer gets the KH. What are your chance to make a point? If you pass you can possibly euchre the dealer. If you pass, you have AD but also two aces. If you order and get euchred can you make up the difference of 8 to 6?
Are you weighing all options? IMO, the answer is pass.

The score is 6 to 6. You hold the following cards in your hand. You sit in the first seat
King of Hearts is the up card.

Irishwolf

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 9:36 pm
by RedDuke
irishwolf wrote:
Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:03 pm
Ask yourself Richard, what is your reasoning for ordering vs passing based on your hand. You have two trumps - there are four unknown. Dealer gets the KH. What are your chance to make a point? If you pass you can possibly euchre the dealer. If you pass, you have AD but also two aces. If you order and get euchred can you make up the difference of 8 to 6?
Are you weighing all options? IMO, the answer is pass.

The score is 6 to 6. You hold the following cards in your hand. You sit in the first seat
King of Hearts is the up card.

Irishwolf
You also don't have a loner stopped in hearts. That could lead to calling being the correct strategy here if only to prevent a successful loner, which would win the game for the other team at a score of 6-6.

With that said though, you're holding three aces. There's only two ways the dealer is going to make a successful lone here. Either they have all five of the remaining trump after picking up the King of Hearts, which is a pretty low probability event (I don't feel like calculating the actual probability right now, but it's less than 0.10%), or if you throw away the wrong ace to the dealer's offsuit when defending against the lone. This is much more likely.

The math would be in favor of passing here.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:40 am
by Richardb02
Thank you for the replies.
1. My first reason for bidding is the guidance from this website, "Bid, if you hold any 2 trump, with 2 or more off suit aces." Now, I understand that these are guidelines, and not hard and fast rules. The section I am quoting is, When should I name Trump page 1.
2. I consider this bid marginal, but worthy of consideration under certain game conditions. Blocking a potential loner was the factor that lead me to bid on the hand. Redduke pointed out the power of the 3 aces to block a lone. His post pointed my weakness of only looking for Bowers. Great point!
3. Irishwolf asks the salient question, "What are your chance to make a point?" I see 2 tricks that I can take 80% of the time (my guidance, not a calculation). I count on Partner for the 3rd trick. If Partner can't take a trick, I see a Plan B, that could take all 3 tricks. So in generalities, I see a 2 out of 3 chance of making a point. 2 out of 3 (67%) is my decision point, based on win 2 at 1 point would equal Opponents' win 1 at 2 points. I am ok losing 1 out of 3 bids with a marginal hand like this at a critical time, in this case a 6-6 score. Now overall my goal is to win the bid 75 to 85% of the time.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:05 am
by Dlan
Sorry I took so long in responding. Yesterday was a little crazy. I spent most of the day trying to fix a messed up web server. (And no I don’t want to talk about the fact that I, while trying to make the site faster, messed it up)

Thanks, Irishwolf and RdeDuke for offering your insight to the question. I also would like to add, you need to use caution whenever putting a trump into the dealer’s hand. With you holding two, there is a fair chance they already has two.

I will review the page ‘When should I name trump, Part 1’ and possibility make some changes. The quiz and related pages were wrote some 9 – 10 years ago. They may need editing to cover the specific questions asked in the quiz.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:06 am
by Wes (aka the legend)
Richardb02 wrote:
Fri Jan 04, 2019 8:02 pm

I answered Bid which agrees with this general guideline.
The correct answer is Pass.
Please advise.
Richard, one thing to keep in mind, the spot you should be bidding the least often in this game is from seat 1 in the first round. Why? Becuz if you have a viable 2nd round hand you should always pass unless you have a first round loner (the exception would be those times you wanna donate). Remember you get a HUGE advantage with first action in the 2nd round.

Think about it. Why would you voluntarily order up in the first round, giving your enemy a trump, knowing the dealer gets to create a void, when you don't have to, I.E. when you have a 2nd round hand?

Look at this hand again. Why order hearts, when your enemy gets to get a heart and create a void, when you can order diamonds in the 2nd round without giving your enemy a diamond, and your enemy doesn't get to create a void either.

Or look at it this way. If you pass hearts in the first round and the 2 seat or dealer orders up aren't you gonna be glad you didn't order it yourself? And if the 3 seat, your partner, orders it up, that's equivalent to you ordering it up anyways so that scenario isn't relevant. If everyone passes, great, call diamonds.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:31 am
by RedDuke
Richard, one thing to keep in mind, the spot you should be bidding the least often in this game is from seat 1 in the first round.
Wes, I respectfully disagree. The seat you should order least often from in the first round is third. Think about it. In first seat, you may be ordering a trump into the dealer's hand but you also have first lead so you have the ability to pull trump. Quite often, a good first lead can allow you to keep control for much of the rest of the hand. In third seat, you don't have the advantage of first lead and you have the dealer behind you who got to create a void and may be able to overtrump you (if your partner didn't/couldn't lead trump).

The one exception to this of course is if the game's score is such that a donation is vital. In those situations, if your partner didn't order then you can be sure that they have a guaranteed trick in their hand. If you have two, then you can order up with confidence.

In this hand though, I do agree with the test in that passing is the best idea. Look at your hand. You have A-9 in both hearts and in next. If you order up hearts, then the dealer picks up the king. If everybody passes, you can immediately call diamonds. You still have the exact same strength (A-9 of trump) that you would have with the hearts call and you don't put a trump into the dealer's hand. If the dealer or his partner order up, then you'd have the exact same chance to take three tricks that you would if you ordered the dealer up since you still have first play. In this case, you'd get 2 points instead of 1. The correct move is to pass.

You'd only want to bid here if you had nothing in next.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:37 am
by Richardb02
Thanks Wes & RedDuke. I 100% agree with the analysis that you don't bid during the first round with this hand, because you have a stronger bid in the 2nd round. And you have the added advantage of bidding next.

Most of my Euchre skills were learned on this website. This topic, "not bidding from the 1st Seat in the first round when you have a strong, next hand in the 2nd round", is not covered with any detail in the Lessons on the website. Please advise.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:38 am
by RedDuke
Most of my Euchre skills were learned on this website. This topic, "not bidding from the 1st Seat in the first round when you have a strong, next hand in the 2nd round", is not covered with any detail in the Lessons on the website. Please advise.
That is some advanced play that we oftentimes discuss in the forum.

What it comes down to is that first seat and the dealer are the two strongest positions to be in. First seat gets first bid and also has first lead so that player can oftentimes pull all of the trump from the opponents' hands. If you figure that there are only seven trump cards in the deck and a first round trump lead (for example, the right) can eliminate four of them then you are in a strong position because you now only have to worry about 3 more cards and at least one of them is probably in your hand. In the first round, you might even know where the second one is and what it is if you ordered up the dealer.

The dealer, of course, gets to play with six cards in the first round and can hopefully create a void and therefore have an opportunity to take a trick by trumping in. In addition, because the dealer has last play on the first trick, he can't be overtrumped and so can take the first trick with the smallest trump in his hand.

Second round though, first seat has pretty much all the advantage. The dealer no longer has the ability to create a void so much of his advantage is lost. Meanwhile, you have first pick at trump and still get first lead so can pull out the opponents' trump cards. This makes it easier to make your aces good.

What it comes down to then is the relative strength of the suits. If you have considerable strength in something other than the turn card then pass. The reason for this is that you get first pick in the second round so you can call your strongest suit. However, you also want to pass if you are holding strength in both the turn suit and something else (preferably next). For example, let's say you're in first seat holding this:

(Card_J-D) (Card_J-H) (Card_9-H) (Card_10-D) (Card_A-C)

The turn card is the King of Hearts. Obviously, if you order it up, you've got a pretty good shot at making your point. However, the better play would be to turn it down. The reason is that if anyone does order it (preferably the other team), then you've got a really good chance to euchre them. If the other team doesn't pick it up, then you can name diamonds, which still gives you a really good shot at making a point. Because you are in first seat, there is no risk that somebody else will name a trump suit that you can't handle.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 1:06 pm
by Wes (aka the legend)
RedDuke wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:31 am
Wes, I respectfully disagree. The seat you should order least often from in the first round is third. Think about it. In first seat, you may be ordering a trump into the dealer's hand but you also have first lead so you have the ability to pull trump. Quite often, a good first lead can allow you to keep control for much of the rest of the hand. In third seat, you don't have the advantage of first lead and you have the dealer behind you who got to create a void and may be able to overtrump you (if your partner didn't/couldn't lead trump).
Unfortunately I can't really dig in my heels on this argument becuz I can't prove I'm ordering less often from 1st than 3rd. I just assume I am. Keep in mind tho your argument is not relevant to my claim. You are making an argument on why one should order with a tighter range from 3rd vs 1st and I agree with you! You should have a tighter range in 3rd than 1st, but that doesn't meant you are ordering less often in 3rd vs 1st! Remember there are still lots of hands you are passing in 1st becuz you have a 2nd round option. You don't have this luxury in 3rd.

EG: Say the dealer upcard is a (Card_9-H) and you have:

(Card_J-H) (Card_J-D) (Card_10-H) (Card_10-D) (Card_10-C)

From first you are passing, from third you are calling. See what I'm getting at here? Again tho if you press me, I can't "prove" I'm ordering less often in 1st.
RedDuke wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:31 am
The one exception to this of course is if the game's score is such that a donation is vital. In those situations, if your partner didn't order then you can be sure that they have a guaranteed trick in their hand. If you have two, then you can order up with confidence.
For the sake of discussion I was ignoring donations. I was basically just focusing on offense. If we include defensive calls, then my claim that we will order the least often from 1st gets even more shaky since in theory we should only donate from seat 1.

Also, I envy you if you get to play often with a partner that actually donates correctly so you can be assured they have a trick if they pass on 9-6/9-7 scores. I rarely play with such a skilled partner, and I often feel compelled to donate from 3rd becuz of it.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 1:15 pm
by Wes (aka the legend)
RedDuke wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:38 am
For example, let's say you're in first seat holding this:

(Card_J-D) (Card_J-H) (Card_9-H) (Card_10-D) (Card_A-C)

The turn card is the King of Hearts. Obviously, if you order it up, you've got a pretty good shot at making your point. However, the better play would be to turn it down. The reason is that if anyone does order it (preferably the other team), then you've got a really good chance to euchre them. If the other team doesn't pick it up, then you can name diamonds, which still gives you a really good shot at making a point. Because you are in first seat, there is no risk that somebody else will name a trump suit that you can't handle.
Another good example illustrating why I think we will end up ordering less often from 1st than 3rd (at least for offensive purposes). In 3rd we have to order this up, in first we never would.

Re: Quiz Question 6

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:06 pm
by RedDuke
Also, I envy you if you get to play often with a partner that actually donates correctly so you can be assured they have a trick if they pass on 9-6/9-7 scores. I rarely play with such a skilled partner, and I often feel compelled to donate from 3rd becuz of it.
I rarely have such a skilled partner either, it's actually more common that I'll have a partner that will get angry if I donate regardless of what seat I'm in!

I get what you're saying with the ordering less from first than third.