jblowery wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 4:20 pm
Lots of good discussions last few weeks regarding EV scores for weak pickups, such as 2 low trump/2 suited or 2 low trump+ace. I thought I'd include a couple other ones for consideration. I wonder how having jacks influences this. Would you pick up as the dealer to create the following hands? For the following, assume you are picking up a low spade to make spades trump:
I'm just gonna tell you what I would do, not what is right or wrong becuz we can't
know that unless it's put to the test. (assume non-controversial score 0-0)
Blocking only 1 out of 3 second round suits, there's no way I'm passing L+1+A as the dealer. Auto-call for me. I would be very surprised if passing beat this call out. As far as how to play it: If a heart is led and you take the first trick with the AH, lead the TH on 2nd street to try to force out more trump. If your void is led (clubs) and you trump in with the QS, lead the AH on 2nd street--this is one of those spots where you have to lead your off ace unpromoted and just hope for the best. If your Ace walks, lead the TH on 3rd street for same reasons as above.
BTW the one L+1+A I'm really not sure about is when we have a doubleton next ace. A hand like this:
Is it still worth making this call given how dirty our off ace is? Is the cost of passing now even higher given that we have almost no red cards in our hand? Should we pass this hand to try to trap S1 into a bad Next call? Well that strategy simply doesn't work for like 95% of the euchre population, but if someone like me is in S1 then maybe it's worth it. IDK. If I had to guess I'd say this hand is a call assuming S1 is an amateur who doesn't call Next but who knows. If I had a simulator this would be the first L+1+A I would test. Another hand I wonder about is a L+1+A hand like this:
I pass that hand cuz now I have good defense (block 2 out of 3 2nd rd suits), but maybe we're better off calling this hand? IDK.
I pass this hand but it wouldn't shock me if it was +EV. It's safe to say that it has a negative expected outcome but passing could have a worse expected outcome making this hand +EV overall. I will say this much, if it's 9-9 and you have an amateur P who doesn't realize they should open it up from S2 in that spot you should call it and hope for the best. Also consider calling this if you have a big lead--a euchre doesn't cost that much and you can always get lucky and why take the chance of S1 having a red loner in the 2nd rd. PS: if you play on the karman app remember this is an auto-call if your P went under maybe at every score--yes maybe even up 9-8! If your opponents go under than this is a suicide call. Only consider it with a really big lead as it's almost a pure donation play now.
With 2 out of 3 second rd suits blocked, I pass this hand. I don't call this marginal when I have good defense. BTW I don't overly worry about not blocking next. To me that's just superstitious thinking. We block 2 out of 3. That's good enough for me. If S1 is sitting on a loner in the 1 suit I don't block god bless him. The only time I would get paranoid about not blocking one suit is if I had a really big lead.
This is basically a dealer donate hand and I don't dealer donate when I have good defense (blocking 2 out of 3). That said, if youre up 9-1, ok you have the luxury to get paranoid about not blocking one suit. I wouldn't blame you for making that call. But this hand is almost always an easy pass for me.
