jblowery wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 11:15 am
I've heard several people indicate that they ALWAYS call from Seat 1/Round 2, unless they have everything blocked. Am I understanding this correctly? If so, it would be nice to hear some additional explanation.
I wouldn't go that far. There are certain spots where I would advocate never passing unless you block all suits and there's other spots where I would pass if I blocked reverse next but didn't block the next suit. The general idea is if you don't block reverse next, call something dammit! except at certain scores you gotta tighten up: up 9-8, 8-8, and maybe also 8-7, 7-8, 7-7, and down 6-8).
The explanation is simple. It is Seat 1's job to protect his team by playing sound defense. That means not just playing your cards but playing the situation. That also means being able to take one for your team with the understanding that there is such a thing as a good euchre.
As far as the mathematical argument behind the strategy of calling thin from Seat 1, 2nd rd, check out my thread "Calling Next with 1 trump + off ace, an EV analysis".
jblowery wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 11:15 am
I can see doing this when you have a significant lead but it seems like a bad practice when the score is neutral. I'm not as good as a lot of the people that claim this so that is why I'm interested in hearing more.
Keep in mind that 99.9% of euchre players would agree with the above (altho sadly roughly that same percentage doesn't change their strategy at significant leads either). What we're talking about is highly counterintuitive but the key to understanding the "why" part is recognizing that you can't pass yourself out of a crappy hand mathematically speaking. IOW the instant you're dealt a crap hand your team takes a mathematical punch to the gut whether you call or pass.
When you pass with a hand that blocks nothing, the probability your enemy gets a 4 point loner sweep, makes a 2 point call, gets a 1 point call all shoot up, and the probability your enemy gets euchred goes way down due to the fact that you don't have much on defense to help your team. So passing has a real cost, and in order to decide if passing is better than calling we have to compare the costs of both strategies. It isn't as simple as I have crap therefore I pass, euchre is way more complex than that.
Let's do an EV example to get this point across. Let's say we have that crap hand.
Score: 0-0, dealer turns down
We have
What's our win equity if we decide to call next with that crappy hand? And is that greater than our win equity if we pass.
First some assumptions.
1) Assume this probability chart is approx accurate: http://members.tripod.com/~Borf_Books/euchprob.htm
2) Assume passing costs us 1 point on average which means the win equity of passing equates to what our equity is down 0-1 with the deal: 45%
3) If we call next trying to hit our P's range, assume our euchre rate is 65%, our 1 point rate is 30% and 2 point rate is 5%.
Win equity of calling: (.65 x .38) + (.30 x .57) + (.05 x .64) = 45%
Note: The .38 number represents our equity down 0-2 with the deal after getting euchred. The .57 represents our equity up 1-0 with the deal after scoring a point, and .64 is our equity up 2-0 with the deal after scoring 2 points.
Ok so the equity of calling = 45% and the equity of passing = 45%. So it's a mathematical tie. But imo we should call whenever it's a tie becuz our call still smooths out some variance for our team by never allowing Seat 2 a four point loner sweep, something we should be especially concerned about when we block nothing. And also, it's very possible if not probable that passing such a weak holding costs more than the 1 point assumption above given that you block nothing which is another reason to consider calling in those virtual mathematical tie situations.
This model breaks down however if Seat 2 is a bad player who passes biddable hands, and just calls with several loner combinations. So another hidden assumption here is Seat 2 is a good competent player.
Either way I hope this one example illustrates that the cost of passing is a real thing in euchre, so much so that there's a strong incentive to gamble and call hoping to get lucky when we don't have much blocked. Hoping to get lucky is a viable strategy when the cost of passing is high, and in euchre it is often very high. But keep in mind we're not exactly calling in the dark. We know something about the card distribution from the first round. Our enemy turned down a black card. And we can infer from that they are more likely to be strong in red, therefore we call the other black to hit them where they are more likely to be weak.