OE readers hand. WoCG 11/30

[Dlan]

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Here is a hand that was sent in for review. Our reader is the dealer, sitting in the West position, turns up the jack of hearts. Their partner in East orders the jack into the dealer's hand. The score is 2 points for each team.

The outcome is E/W gets euchred. Is the euchre avoidable? Would you have played it differently?

https://worldofcardgames.com/#!replayer ... %3A1%7D%5D

[Wes (aka the legend)]

Here is a hand that was sent in for review. Our reader is the dealer, sitting in the West position, turns up the jack of hearts. Their partner in East orders the jack into the dealer's hand. The score is 2 points for each team.

The outcome is E/W gets euchred. Is the euchre avoidable? Would you have played it differently?

Firstly, East should not be ordering up his partner's bower with 2 trump. I believe we all should be ordering up bowers from the 2 spot more than what is theoretically recommended with unknown P's becuz 99% of people pass too much and don't go alone enough. But everybody is aggressive in this game. Biddable hands are rarely passed and everybody has good loner vision. So in this setting ordering up your P's bower from the 2 spot with just 2 low trump + no off aces at 2-2 is simply a bad play. If the score were 9-9 or 8-5 or 9-6, then it's a good call but not 2-2.

Secondly, S1 needs to be leading trump in this spot. S1 has L+2 against a 2 seat order. The greatest advantage of a 2 seat order is the fact that his P is guaranteed to have at least 1 trump and almost always a void. S1 has the perfect hand to destroy this advantage. If the 2 seat has 3 trump as he should in this spot that means the dealer has only 1 trump, the Right. Leading trump and forcing out 2 trump from your enemy, including the Right, is a coup for S1's hand. If the 2 seat only has 2 trump there's still a great chance the dealer only has the right and the other trump is in S3's hand or the kitty. And if the dealer does have 2 trump, a trump lead can still force out the dealer's Right.

If the dealer had called trump instead of the 2 seat it's more debatable whether or not we should lead trump, but when the 2 seat calls, a trump lead with this holding is absolutely mandatory. Take away S2's greatest strength: knowing he has a P with at least 1 trump + 1 void, especially when S2 orders up the Right, and especially when S2 will order with 2 trump.

Ok now onto the actual hand.

(Edit: just to be clear, the first 2 tricks are completely standard and undebatable, the dealer trumps in and sends the Right)

Could the dealer have played this hand in such a way as to avoid getting euchred. Well one could say, yes, if the dealer double leads the boss Qs after he takes the first 2 tricks, his team will never get euchred. Problem solved. But that would be results oriented thinking.

The real question is, can we reach that result through logical deduction and thus distill this information into a strategy we can use in the future in a similar spot. And the answer is surprisingly yes. I say surprisingly becuz I would've played the hand exactly as the dealer had.

So here's the logic: If you know your P may order your bower with 2 trump, and S3 shows void in trump on your Right bower lead, this opens up the possibility that S1 could be loaded in trump and the easiest way to combat that possibility is to immediately put S1 in a squeeze by double leading the boss Qs. S1 will usually not be able to escape this squeeze unless he has Ace-Left in trump. On a bad day this play will backfire as S1 will trump in and your P will unluckily have that final spade. But overall this play has the best chances of neutralizing S1 if he actually has the hand we fear, and this play also doesn't hurt our team if S1 doesn't have it since a double lead boss Qs is a fine lead after trump has been played especially with S3 out of trump. So we get the best of both worlds with this lead, protection against that S1 monster we fear at virtually no strategic cost.

To reiterate, this logic is only activated IF 2 conditions are simultaneously met:

1) S2 can order your bower with 2 trump

And

2) S3 shows void on your Right bower lead.

If S2 only orders your bower in that spot with 3 trump+, then S1 can never be loaded, so leading the Ac is fine. If S3 plays a trump on your Right bower lead than that also means S1 cannot be loaded in trump even if S2 ordered with just two.

[Tbolt65]

Upon review the euchre is avoidable. However, I really can't fault playing the ace of clubs after the jack of hearts. With that said. The dealer has two effective boss cards off suit. One is Ace of clubs which is the fresh suit. The other is the queen of spades, a suit thats been lead already. To the right of the dealer is void in trump. So that leaves 1st seat, 2nd seat the dealer and the kitty with the remaining trump. 3 trump was exposed upon leading the right. The dealer has one left, you expect seat 2 to have atleast one more trump left, maybe more. Take the bare minim5you would think seat 2 still has left, that still leaves 2 trump un accounted for. Which can only be in seat 1 hand or in the discard pile. So on average seat 1 sjould ve sure to have 1 trump most of the time while having 2 trump left some of the time or having no trump left some of the time.


Thats as far as Im going to go with this hand at this time. Ive got a bias now knowing the outcome. Im going to go back one more time to see if I missed anything in what cards where played to justify a certain play or possible play. Also a big glaring issue which would be a big help if the dealers consideration of seat 2s range of hands is being considered or is known?


Tbolt65
Edward

Edit: I did go back to double check with the card play and what was played. The Ace of club play doesn't seem like a bad play and again I can not fault for playing it. It is fresh and you'd think it would be ok. You have a boss queen but your partner did throw the 9s. But as we can see here the way to avoid the euchre is to play the queen of spades.

I would categorize this hand as the ones that come along every 10,000 hands or games. Where making a standard play is the wrong play and to recognize that perhaps leading through again might be the best course just in case seat 1 has the two remaining trump left and give your partner a shot to over trump.

[Tbolt65]

Wes actually brings up a good point. I just read his post and I missed this in my break down of the hand. Seat 2 shouldnt be ordering up here the bower to the dealer at 2 to 2. 9 to9 or 8 to 9 us a different scenario.

Tbolt65
Edward

[Wes (aka the legend)]

Edit: I did go back to double check with the card play and what was played. The Ace of club play doesn't seem like a bad play and again I can not fault for playing it. It is fresh and you'd think it would be ok. You have a boss queen but your partner did throw the 9s. But as we can see here the way to avoid the euchre is to play the queen of spades.

I would categorize this hand as the ones that come along every 10,000 hands or games. Where making a standard play is the wrong play and to recognize that perhaps leading through again might be the best course just in case seat 1 has the two remaining trump left and give your partner a shot to over trump.

When we're partners this situation will come up 0 out of 10,000 hands :-) since we'll always have 3+ trump when we order from the 2 spot (actually nvm we can be in this spot too when we're at 8 or 9 pts). This is the type of hand I love reading about becuz I would lead the AC every time in that spot and not think twice about it. The fact that there's a logical solution that points to leading the QS is fascinating to me. I never would've figured it out if this hand wasn't posted. And to top it all off, one could argue that this logic is not only easy to remember (you just need to keep track of two variables) but it's even decently applicable becuz most randoms online order up the right too much from the 2 seat so we can actually be in this type of spot more often than we may think. BTW I can't even blame them for ordering too much in this spot becuz part of the reason they do it is becuz they have been conditioned to due to the typical random dealer passing the Right too often.

[Tbolt65]

If seat 2 passes here. This same situation still happens. If you or I are dealer, we are not passing and same scenario still happens. Just saying. So when we get set its important to realise what happened. Its very hard to pick up at times but this here is not about what cards where played but what cards are left. The possibilities and if one recognize it, leading through here may be the best play.