What do u lead?

[jblowery]

U are in 1st seat with garbage. is the up card. You call bottoms and end up with . Dealer passes. Do u call hearts? If so what is your lead?

[irishwolf]

I am confused as you say the AH is the up card but if the dealer passes do you call hearts? I take it you intended to say Next, Diamonds? I don't know what it means to say you call bottoms? Never heard that term associated with euchre.

You give no other information as to the score or the situation and skill? All that is important?

Okay, I am assuming hearts is up, assuming not at 8 to 8 or 9 to 8 score. Let's assume you are ahead in score like 7 to 4 and can afford a euchre. So with this score, to have to call something because you have no defense against clubs or spades.
Your hand, even though four trumps is about 2.50 tricks. So anytime you order the dealer from 1st or 3rd you should have close to 3 potential tricks. And if all pass, you have JD 10D, about 1.5 tricks.

Thus, to me I would call hearts. So you need the JH & KH, two unknown to be evenly spread between Stock and 3 players. There is a 50% the dealer only has the AH and a ~42% chance he has either the JH or KH in addition to the AH, 6.5% chance he has both. But those probabilities also go for your partner and S2. Even if the dealer as JH AH KH and no aces there is no guarantee of a euchre if your partner has two aces.

For your lose, the 10D, its 2:1 the opponents will win this card. And odds are you will have to lead it at some point, slim chance you will be able to slough it unless your partner has the JH (44% he has it or will be buried).

What to lead, I would lead the QH as its most likely the JH is with one of the three players. Save the JD to trump and clean up. So I think you will make your point about 65%+. But those are good odds to order hearts and it much more difficult to get euchred than to make a point.

Next is no cake walk, a weak hand that your partner has to win 2 tricks most of the time.

Since I would go with hearts, I will not comment on the next call, diamonds.

~Irishwolf

[RedDuke]

Why am I not calling diamonds if dealer passes?

The way to play this hand is to pass and hope to euchre the dealer if he picks up and call diamonds if he doesn't.

There is a 50% the dealer only has the AH and a ~42% chance he has either the JH or KH in addition to the AH, 6.5% chance he has both.

Where are those numbers coming from?

There's 2 trumps out of 7 that you don't know. There's 15 cards in the hands of the other players and 4 in the kitty. Thus, 18 cards that you don't know given that you don't know given what you ordered up. Considering that you did order up, there's 2 trump that you don't know. There's 4 cards in the dealer's hand, 5 in your partner's, 5 in s2's and 4 in the kitty.

Thus, there's 4+5+5+4 cards or 18 that you don't know. 2 of them are trumps. Thus, there's a 2/18 probability that each player has one trump (although granted that only 2 players can have a trump). You already know that the dealer has one (excluded from calculations). That's not a 50% probability that he has 2. It's also not a 50% probability that that's all he's got.

I wanna see your math on this one Irish. And yes, show me the combinatorics.

[Wes (aka the legend)]

There is a 50% the dealer only has the AH and a ~42% chance he has either the JH or KH in addition to the AH, 6.5% chance he has both.

Where are those numbers coming from?

Here are the exact numbers:

Probability the dealer only has the

(2C0 x 16C5)/18C5 = 4368/8568 = 50.98%

Probability the dealer has either the JH or the KH in addition to the AH:

(2C1 x 16C4)/18C5 = 3640/8568 = 42.48%

Probability the dealer has both the JH and the KH:

(2C2 x 16C3)/18C5 = 560/8568 = 6.54%

Given that IW wasn't aiming for exact precision, we can say he was right.

Note: Those numbers are based on a random distribution, but since we've already had action in this hand (3 people passed), the distribution isn't actually random. This issue only shows up with S2's range as S2 has hands in his passing range that should not be there whereas S3 does not. For example there are 560 combos of R+1 in S2's passing range that he would've called with assuming he's a good player. There are also 11 combos of non-euchre hand R+0+3 off ace hands S2 may call with, and I personally would call with R+0+2 off aces if I don't block 2 out of 3 second round suits, which is around 165 combos. Depending how aggressive S2 is, his range will be distorted between 6.53% to 8.59%. This means that S4's range will be slightly stronger than those numbers indicate. So the probability of S4 having just the AH will in reality be slightly lower than 50.98%, and the probability S4 has 1 more trump or both trump will be slightly higher. Nevertheless those numbers are still good approximations.

[Richardb02]

U are in 1st seat with garbage. is the up card. You call bottoms and end up with . Dealer passes. Do u call hearts? If so what is your lead?

U are in 1st seat. Neutral score. is the up card. Your hand:
.
Should you order Hearts?
Should you pass and then call Next, diamonds?

This is a classic S1/Next decision. BPS analysis:
0.25 S1 R1
0.75 Jd
0.50 Qh
0.25 Th
0.25 9h
0.75 4 trump, only 1 of RLA
0.75 2 Voids
3.50 Subtotal
-.25 Value of Ah up card v 9h min
3.25 Hand value/1.25 pts per trick= 2.6 tricks, close agreement w IW

0.50 S1 R2
0.75 Next
1.00 Jd
0.25 Td
0.75 2 Void
3.25 Hand value - I’ll explain differences w IW later. IMO, I choose Pass/Next for this hand, very strongly. From recent posts I would choose Next even if the R1 hand was 0.50 to 0.75 points higher. The 0.50 - 0.75 is based on the value of playing for a 2 point euchre vs a 1 point order.

Comparison to IW’s 1.5 tricks:
3.25 Hand Value
-.75 Next - IW’s analysis doesn’t look at Next
2.50 or 2 tricks
-.75 2 Voids, not factored in by IW
1.75 or 1.4 tricks, very close to IW’s 1.5 tricks
So the difference is how valuable is Next and the likeliness of partner having Jh, how valuable are 2 voids and and a contrast is IW’s question vs Rb’s question. IW asks which hand is best. Rb asks, which EV is best. It is an excellent contrast in thinking.

[irishwolf]

RedDuke,

"I wanna see your math on this one Irish. And yes, show me the combinatorics."

I gave you the percentages of each as close approximations, they were rounded because it 50% is easy for people to remember. I did not round up the 6.5% because it is a low percentage. The 42% was rounded down and Wes gave the EXACT NUMBERS. Those are based on randomized cards played many many times over (Law of Large Numbers.) You said you had a PhD so this should have been easy for you to also arrive at. But there is a high variance in euchre as to the combinations of cards in the short run. To give any percentages beyond rounding to the nearest whole number is an exercise in futility unless getting down to less than 8 to 10%.

And for you and Richard, as to the rest of you analysis on the hand, I won't comment further. I gave you my opinion as to what I would do and the value of each hand as I see it. What great, for both of you is that you are thinking and analyzing. That's call Deliberate Practice and is exactly, combined with testing and playing how you will improve your game.

And guess what, here is how you can test your own assumptions to see if what you think is close to reality of what should be done. (I do it all the time.) Take the 6 cards you know, remove them from the deck, and randomly deal them to S2, S3, S4 & Stock one at a time helps randomize them in addition to riffle shuffle. Record each and play them out! It's work! But you will learn a lot.

~Irishwolf