Here is an interesting hand

[Jeepster]

I played with a competitive group last night and an interesting situation came up. I sat in first position with the score at 9 - 9. The dealer turned up the A quick look at my hand showed



Given the likelihood that the dealer would pick the card, I passed thinking this should be an easy euchre. Surprisingly second ordered the queen.

I starting by leading the left, second the right, third the 10 and the dealer the 9. Now second leads a spade and I take it with my ace. Now I assume second had ordered with right – little and so I my plan was to lead the ace to clean out the balance of the trump. This assumption turned out to be wrong as second played a small diamond. I then led the ace of clubs, the dealer trumped with the king and still held the queen of spades. The queen gave the third trick and a win.

I thought it would be interesting to hear everyone’s take on it.

[irishwolf]

So 2nd seat ordered with only the Right, no aces, and the dealer had 3 trumps 9H, QH, KH spade doubleton. Even if 2nd passes, you still can't euchre them. Except by leading the AD or AC to trick one.

That's insane!

[RedDuke]

I played with a competitive group last night and an interesting situation came up. I sat in first position with the score at 9 - 9. The dealer turned up the A quick look at my hand showed



Given the likelihood that the dealer would pick the card, I passed thinking this should be an easy euchre. Surprisingly second ordered the queen.

I starting by leading the left, second the right, third the 10 and the dealer the 9. Now second leads a spade and I take it with my ace. Now I assume second had ordered with right – little and so I my plan was to lead the ace to clean out the balance of the trump. This assumption turned out to be wrong as second played a small diamond. I then led the ace of clubs, the dealer trumped with the king and still held the queen of spades. The queen gave the third trick and a win.

I thought it would be interesting to hear everyone’s take on it.

First of all, it's questionable whether leading trump here on defense is really a good idea. Usually when second seat orders up his partner, one of them is going to have three trump. At best, your partner will have one. Your trump lead will almost certainly strip your partner of any trump and leave him pretty much useless for the rest of the hand since you are holding all the aces. I get what you were trying to do with that lead (pull the right and leave the boss trump along with the aces in your hand) but it's not a good idea here since the dealer very likely has a void and if he trumps into the void, they've made a point.

The best lead here is one of the green aces, either the Ace of Spades or the Ace of Clubs. If that gets through then lead the other one. If both of them get through, then lead the left.

What you are hoping for with the green ace leads is that either they get through or that your partner can overtrump second seat. With this hand though, unless second seat is drunk he's not going to trump your ace lead with the right but rather let his partner do it.

[Wes (aka the legend)]

I thought it would be interesting to hear everyone’s take on it.

You played the hand perfectly Jeepster. Against a 2 seat call you should always lead trump on defense with 3 aces + 2 trump, especially at 9-9. A 2 seat call in the 1st rd is generally going to be on the weaker side range-wise given that they are ordering up their partner, but in this case, at 9-9, 2 seat's range should be at his weakest point. At 9-9 in the first round, 2 seat has to call with all helper hands if he has no where else to go. It's now or never. You have a great hand to exploit that dynamic since you don't JUST have two trump + 3 off aces, you have the Left-Ace of trump! Your best chance to euchre your opponents is to lead trump as you did, and frankly it's a pretty damn good chance. Not leading trump here would be a critical error. Also you gotta lead trump a 2nd time as you did to try to clean them out. You basically ran into a bad beat with the dealer having 3 trump/two suited.

[Jeepster]

Second position ordering with only a bare right did surprise me.
My guess is, at 9 – 9, it was a Hail Mary call.

Count on your partner for two?

[RedDuke]

Second position ordering with only a bare right did surprise me.
My guess is, at 9 – 9, it was a Hail Mary call.

Count on your partner for two?

The dealer usually ends up with 3 trump on a first round call so you can usually count on him for two.

I'll admit though that I was stunned that he'd try that call with just the right and no aces. Although like you said, maybe he was worried that the dealer wouldn't pick up and he was making a hail mary call.

[Wes (aka the legend)]

Second position ordering with only a bare right did surprise me.
My guess is, at 9 – 9, it was a Hail Mary call.

Count on your partner for two?

At 9-9 sometimes seat 2 will have no choice but to order up with just the bare right. For example, let's say seat 2 had this hand (assume Qh is upcard as before):



Your team's best chance to win this game--and most likely the only chance--is in hearts, so seat 2 should tell his partner to pick it up. Seat 2 has a guaranteed 1 trick and it isn't much of a stretch to hope his partner, the dealer, can get 2 tricks since he gets to create a void and already has one trump showing. Like I've talked about in other threads, at 9-9, seat 2 needs to be ready to loosen up a bit.