Discard on Loner

[inglewoodjack]

I’m the dealer, going alone in spades with the following hand:



I picked up 9-spades.

My question is: what would you discard?

[Wes (aka the legend)]

I’m the dealer, going alone in spades with the following hand:



I picked up 9-spades.

My question is: what would you discard?

The question is what's more likely to burn you. Keeping the Ad and your opponent trumping in on a diamond lead or getting rid of the Ad and running into a guarded Kx or Qx in hearts. I don't have rigorous math backing me up but I'm pretty sure running into a guarded King or Queen is more likely, so get rid of the Jh.

What about if you have AhQh. I still say get rid of the Qh.

What about if you have AhKh. Now I get rid of the Ad.

[inglewoodjack]

Kept the Jh. Ran into the Kh and Qh.

[jblowery]

Tough one. Seems like somewhat of a wash to me.

[RedDuke]

On a loner, usually the best card to discard is the lone green ace. The reason for this is that it limits the ability for someone to overtrump you. Usually, being two suited is less likely to run into problems.

Where you'd run into trouble is if one opponent has both the King and Queen of Hearts. Your ace would only be able to take the one out.

If you discard the Jack of Hearts, you'll run into a problem if third seat is void in diamonds. Depending on what exactly they have, this scenario could easily result in you getting euchred.

With this scenario, I'd really want to be making sure that the 9 of trump will take a trick. Discarding the lone ace is the best way to do that. If that nine was say the Ace or the King though, I'd definitely discard the jack.

[Wes (aka the legend)]

Tough one. Seems like somewhat of a wash to me.

I honestly don't think this is a tough spot at all. Look at it this way. One event: 'Your singleton green ace getting trumped on the first lead' happens very rarely. The other event:

Someone having:







To stop your

Literally happens all the time.

You guys are fearing the wrong event here.

You basically need a 3 leg parlay to hit for your singleton to go down:

Seat 1 has to lead it
Seat 3 has to be void in it
Seat 3 has to have trump to trump in

Protect yourselves from the common event, not the rare event.

[Wes (aka the legend)]

On a loner, usually the best card to discard is the lone green ace. The reason for this is that it limits the ability for someone to overtrump you. Usually, being two suited is less likely to run into problems.

He's the dealer. He can't get overtrumped on the first lead. And this logic doesn't work anyways.

Say we're going alone in the 2 seat with this hand so now we CAN get overtrumped. Keeping the lowers our probability of getting overtrumped which is a GOOD thing when we have .

The can force our enemy to spend a trump without us losing a trump. That lowers our probability of running into problems.

Where you'd run into trouble is if one opponent has both the King and Queen of Hearts. Your ace would only be able to take the one out.

There are other combos to worry about than just

If you discard the Jack of Hearts, you'll run into a problem if third seat is void in diamonds. Depending on what exactly they have, this scenario could easily result in you getting euchred.

I wouldn't say "easily". I've played around 20K games in the last 2 years, more than a lifetime worth of games for many casual euchre players and I seriously cannot recall EVER getting euchred with this configuration from any spot let alone the dealer spot where we get to close the action:



I honestly feel like I would remember if I did.

And if Seat 3 does trump our and thus the lead is now in the wrong spot for us, all we have to do is trump with a bower, then send another bower, and then play the .

This lowers our probability of getting euchred to virtually nothing. I mean, if we take that line someone would have to have all 3 remaining trump loaded in their hand + a void in hearts in order to euchre us.

The only real way to get in trouble is if we play this spot incorrectly by trumping in with the after 3rd seat trumps in and gets the lead.

With this scenario, I'd really want to be making sure that the 9 of trump will take a trick. Discarding the lone ace is the best way to do that. If that nine was say the Ace or the King though, I'd definitely discard the jack.

We do not have to worry about the 9 taking a trick. If we play this hand correctly, the probability of getting euchred is damn near close to zero. Discarding the lone ace is the best way to NOT get 4 points here. Since we really shouldn't be worried about getting euchred at all with this hand, our focus should be on making the discard that increases our chances of a 4 point sweep, and the choice is obvious. One has to be running really bad to have their singleton green ace get trumped on the first lead whereas someone stopping our outside suited ace with a guarded King or Queen, happens all the time.

Again, people in this thread are fearing the wrong event.

[Streblerm]

Although I wouldn’t hesitate to call alone with 2 green aces given the choice I would take creating a void over holding two aces.

I don’t have any math or examples but to me holding three suits significantly increases the danger of getting over trumped.

[Tbolt65]

I've played it both ways. Generally speaking I want to two suit myself as much as possible. Wes however makes a good argument.

Tbolt65
Edward