What is the better call?

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sdu754
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:15 am

What is the better call?

Unread post by sdu754 » Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:43 am

You are in the first seat versus strong players score 3-4 and clubs is turned down. You have:

Qh, Jh, Ad, Kd & Jc

What is the better call?

I say Diamonds because you have Left-Ace-King. On another site someone said Hearts because you have the Right which is a guaranteed trick, plus two "2 or 3 likely winners". To me, if you call hearts, the Ace of Diamonds is pretty weak as offsuit since you have another Diamond, and the Jack automatically becomes a Heart.

Would like to see this in Raydog's simulator if possible.



irishwolf
Posts: 1319
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2018 9:33 pm

Unread post by irishwolf » Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:50 am

I would Pass with my known Partner! (P.S. It our Convention if I Pass he can call anything!) This is a Euchre hand in Green.

2nd Choice is Hearts because lead JH then AD. Opponents have to have 3 H's to Euchre me. You call Diamonds you have no off suit.

irish

raydog
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:56 pm

Unread post by raydog » Wed Feb 15, 2023 8:50 pm

I analyzed this hand with my simulator.

I first decided to check 2 possible turned cards: the AC and the 9C, in case it made any difference. I also looked at what happened if the hand never made it to the 2nd round: who was bidding, and were they good bids?

So the first scenario is: S1 holds Q-JH + A-KD + JC (AC turned)
S2 bids 13.0% of the time, for an EV of +0.55
S3 bids 0.9% of the time, for an EV of +1.67
S4 bids 45.9% of the time, for an EV of +0.44
S1 gets to bid, R2, 40.2% of the time

When I change the turn card to the 9C, these figures are little changed:
S2 bids 13.0% of the time, for an EV of +0.46
S3 bids 1.9% of the time, for an EV of +1.66
S4 bids 45.4% of the time, for an EV of +0.36
S1 gets to bid, R2, 39.7% of the time.

No real surprises here, and the bids appear to be justified - they are generating real points for the bidder. But we are eliminating 60% of the possible hand distributions, which is important to understand when interpreting the results when S1 bids, R2.

Next, I looked at the case where the AC was turned, and S1 bid either D, H or S in the 2nd round. For each of these possible bids, I tested different 1st trick leads to make sure they were playing the hand as well as possible.

Bid H, lead...:
JH (then AD): (6,427 / 25,813 / 7,814) EV = +0.58
AD (then JC if it wins): (3,649 / 27,071 / 9,334) EV = +0.39
JC: (3,263 / 25,377 / 11,414) EV = +0.23
best to lead the R in this case, followed by the AD

Bid D, lead...:
JH (then AD if it wins): (4,142 / 27,420 / 8,659) EV = +0.46
QH: (3,717 / 28,657 / 7,847) EV = +0.51
JC: (2,682 / 28,669 / 8,870) EV = +0.41
best to lead the QH, as it leads to the fewest euchres.

Bid S, lead...:
JC (then AD if it wins): EV = -0.35
AD: EV = -0.14
JH: EV = -0.45
best to not bid next!

So overall, it looks best to bid H and lead the R followed by the AD. The euchre rate is the lowest and the sweep rate the highest among all the scenarios! The difference is not huge, but it's significant.
[my simulator currently bids D and leads the JH, then the AD if it wins. It attributes a score of 15.5 to bidding D and a score of 12.8 to bidding H, and bids the suit with the better score.]

Finally, I compared 3 choices head-to-head with the same 100,000 hands:
bid H, lead JH (then AD): EV = +0.58
bid D, lead QH: EV = +0.51
pass, R2: EV = +0.46
best to bid H, and not to pass.

I tested these last 3 choices again with the 9C as the turn card:
bid H, lead JH (the AD): EV = +0.56
bid D, lead QH: EV = +0.48
pass, R2: EV = +0.51
still best to bid H.

sdu754
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Jan 23, 2021 3:15 am

Unread post by sdu754 » Fri Feb 17, 2023 5:19 pm

Thanks for the analysis, it is excellent as always.

What were the Euchre rates?

raydog
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:56 pm

Unread post by raydog » Fri Feb 17, 2023 6:03 pm

I broke the down the results of each scenario into 3 numbers: (x / y / z)
x is the number of sweeps, y is the number of 1 pt wins, z is the number of euchres.
So euchre rate is just x / (x+y+z).

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