Playing Alone w/ 4 Low Trumps and Offsuit Ace

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RedDuke
Posts: 473
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:22 am

Playing Alone w/ 4 Low Trumps and Offsuit Ace

Unread post by RedDuke » Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:38 am

This happened last night in an online game I was playing and wanted to get some input.

I'm in second seat holding both red jacks, ace of diamonds, and ace-queen of spades.

Turn card is the 10 of clubs, everybody passes first round.

Second round, I'm hoping first seat passes so I can try a loner in diamonds. To my astonishment, first seat calls diamonds and goes alone.

First lead is king of diamonds, I overtake with my ace, my partner throws off the jack of spades.

I then promptly lead both bowers for the euchre. Fourth lead is my ace of spades, which first seat trumps. He then leads Ace of Clubs for the final trick.

Third seat is furious and starts cussing out his partner for going alone. Was it really such a bad call though? First seat had K-Q-10-9 of diamonds and the Ace of Clubs. While it was going to be a one point hand if either me or my partner had any diamonds, the odds of actually getting euchred weren't that high. Even if he would have taken his partner along, they would have still been euchred on that call.



Jeepster
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 26, 2018 11:12 am

Unread post by Jeepster » Sun Dec 02, 2018 10:38 am

Whereabouts in the game did it happen? Here it would be helpful for us to know the score.

In hand you described, with your team were sitting at 9 with the other team needing 3 – 4 points to win, the call makes sense. Remember, there are nine cards buried on a lone call. The resulting euchre was due to an unlikely card distribution.

RedDuke
Posts: 473
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:22 am

Unread post by RedDuke » Sun Dec 02, 2018 10:44 am

The score was 5-2 in our favor in a ten point game, so a successful loner wouldn't have given anyone the win but it certainly would have helped even up the score.

The only real way a partner could have changed the outcome here is if his partner had the right and my partner had the left. That would have given them 2 points.

Wes (aka the legend)
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Unread post by Wes (aka the legend) » Sun Dec 02, 2018 1:58 pm

RedDuke wrote:
Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:38 am
Third seat is furious and starts cussing out his partner for going alone. Was it really such a bad call though? First seat had K-Q-10-9 of diamonds and the Ace of Clubs. While it was going to be a one point hand if either me or my partner had any diamonds, the odds of actually getting euchred weren't that high. Even if he would have taken his partner along, they would have still been euchred on that call.
That's a standard loner hand. Yes it's close to the bottom of our loner range but standard nonetheless. One of the biggest leaks people have is not getting euchred often enough on loners. A 4 point play in a 10 point game is such a HUGE win probability swing one should be willing to take calculated gambles (that can blow up in their face) to go for it.

3rd seat sounds like a very weak player. One of those level zero, results oriented players.

RedDuke
Posts: 473
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:22 am

Unread post by RedDuke » Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:04 am

Wes (aka the legend) wrote:
Sun Dec 02, 2018 1:58 pm
RedDuke wrote:
Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:38 am
Third seat is furious and starts cussing out his partner for going alone. Was it really such a bad call though? First seat had K-Q-10-9 of diamonds and the Ace of Clubs. While it was going to be a one point hand if either me or my partner had any diamonds, the odds of actually getting euchred weren't that high. Even if he would have taken his partner along, they would have still been euchred on that call.
That's a standard loner hand. Yes it's close to the bottom of our loner range but standard nonetheless. One of the biggest leaks people have is not getting euchred often enough on loners. A 4 point play in a 10 point game is such a HUGE win probability swing one should be willing to take calculated gambles (that can blow up in their face) to go for it.

3rd seat sounds like a very weak player. One of those level zero, results oriented players.
Would it have still been worthy of a loner attempt if the offsuit card wasn't an ace? Say if it was the Queen of Clubs instead of the Ace?

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

Unread post by irishwolf » Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:58 am

GOING ALONE - CLUBS WENT DOWN

My input on this is that 1st seat is going alone - Going Green (Crossing suit). His partner probably has a great hand in Next. Regardless of the score, going alone when the J J A are out, it only takes one of these to stop you. So to me this is a statistical problem. What is the probability that neither opponent has J J A? You will make your loner about 5% of the time (95% stopped).

However, the chance that your partner has the right is 27% and you just might take him along for the ride and a sweep by leading to his RB.

So there are the odds - was it a good decision?

"Third seat is furious and starts cussing out his partner for going alone. Was it really such a bad call though? First seat had K-Q-10-9 of diamonds and the Ace of Clubs. While it was going to be a one point hand if either me or my partner had any diamonds, the odds of actually getting euchred weren't that high. Even if he would have taken his partner along, they would have still been euchred on that call."

Wes (aka the legend)
Posts: 1541
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:03 pm

Unread post by Wes (aka the legend) » Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:01 pm

RedDuke wrote:
Mon Dec 03, 2018 5:04 am
Would it have still been worthy of a loner attempt if the offsuit card wasn't an ace? Say if it was the Queen of Clubs instead of the Ace?
Good question. Always good to try to tease out what is the worst possible loner hand in any given configuration. This thinking will help get our overall loner range as wide as possible putting the fear of god in our opponents! And apparently maybe in our partners too. :)

In this case I think having the Ace as our offsuit card is critical. That lowers the probability of us getting euchred dramatically. IOW, the weakness of this marginal loner hand basically necessitates we have the ace to back it up.

That said, when thinking about loners at the bottom of our range there are always two scenarios to keep in mind: 1) Normal score scenarios, and 2) desperation scenarios (E.G. being down 9-6, 9-7, 8-0, etc)

The KQT9+offsuit Ace is the bottom of my range in a normal score scenario (E.G 0-0, 3-1, 6-5, etc), but if I'm down 9-6, I'm probably gonna go for it with KQT9+offsuit King. That's as low as I would go tho, and I'm not sure if that is right. I feel way more confident about the bottom of my loner range in normal situations (I've done my fair share of experimenting over the approx 20K games I've played online). In desperation situations, my attitude is basically: "Hey if you can conceive of a way it will work, then go for it!" Of course that's not a very mathematically rigorous way of looking at it, which means that approach is destined to be wrong strictly speaking, but that's probably the best we got without running simulations.

PS: Even down 9-6, in OP's spot, I probably would not try the desperation loner KQT9+K crossing the river. Definitely need the offsuit ace in that situation imo.

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