Ohio Euchre's Message Center

I have been working at and trying to get good at this game. I am still working on calling Next or Cross, and I am a bit better at dealing with loners, but I am really at a loss when it comes to stick the dealer. This site really doesn't cover that topic. Often when everyone has passed, twice, then I get stuck with this, I notice that my hand is a complete mix of nothing I could possibly bid on. An example would be Red Bower, mixed suits of low and mid numbers, 4 suited, an no aces. What to do? The timer ticks down and I have to decide quickly. The only think I can think of is to try to remember what my partner declined and guess from there. Anybody good at this with any tips?? Thanks.

There is no easy or accurate answer to your question, because so few hands make it to this point in the game (easily less than 1%), so the answer is nearly entirely dependent on how the other players bid. Are they really calling all the hands they should be (all the hands which give them a better expected outcome if they call than if they pass, even if that outcome is negative)? Are your opponents a strategy of passing some pretty good hands because they are trying to trap you into getting euchred rather than earning just 1 pt if they call (a perfectly logical strategy)? Since you (I think) mostly play with bots and randos on the internet, you don't have much occasion to get a read on how they bid.

I would suggest this simple rule: bid the suit where you have the most trump. And if it's a tie, bid the suit with the stronger cards (higher trump value). You will always have a callable suit with at least 2 trump - if you have two trump in the suit you turned down, you shouldn't have turned it down!

Yes, I think bidding the suit with 10-9 is better than bidding the suit with the lone R, though it is debatable. Not only do you have twice as many trump, there is also 1 less trump for the opponents to have.

No, I don't think you can use the rule of preferring a next suit bid from seats 1 and 3 and a green suit (crossing suits) bid from seats 2 and 4, which is usually the case for the 2nd round, because the other players, having passed, have defied any predilection for those suits. It's simply a toss-up.

Know that singleton and doubleton aces have a much better chance of winning when there is a 2nd round bid, because the cards tend to be distributed more evenly. So If I had A-9H and Q-10D, I would actually bid the D, hoping that AH could win a trick on its own.

Above all, realize that there is a good chance you will get euchred. Perhaps with any suit you bid. That's just the nature of the game. Fortunately, this scenario shouldn't arise too often.

Picking a suit of the opposite color from the suit you turned down tends to give you the best chance of success.

Thank you both so much! At least this gives me some kind of buoy to use for a guideline in this situation. You are right that they do not turn up that often, but I seem to get Euchered whenever, although the last time this happened [yesterday] for the first time I chose the suit with two trump, and with the help of my partner, it walked.

Again - thank you!

You should always consider the turned-up card as the dealer. You need to imagine your hand with that card in it and also what your discard would be. If the suit of the turned-up card is your best suit, you should consider calling it in stick the dealer, especially if the player to your right passes a lot in the hopes of euchring you.

The first time that I played stick the dealer the first time I dealt I got a crap hand and it passed back around to me. I noticed throughout the night that the person to my right would never call it in the hopes of getting another Euchre. My team easily won as I called several times from this seat earning points. I called it almost every time I dealt.

Thank you for that reply. Good grief - I never realized that somebody could actually deliberately cause somebody a euchre by not calling. I will pay attention to that in the future.