You lead with the ace of spades. It's not remotely close

we had that rule too, left didnt count as trump for picking up

also yea As is the lead here, if it goes through then Kd prob

I generally don't lead an ace when I only have one of them. I can save it for the end when all the trump has been played so I don't have to worry about it getting ruffed. The only risk to that is if the dealer both has a spade and gets rid of it at some point between now and then. But in this case, the dealer has most of the trump so he would never have a chance to play it off unless the A was led by his partner and he happened to not have any clubs.

I think it's a decision between playing the J, the 9, and the K.

I don't understand the need/purpose for a rule that says you have to have trump to order/pick up or call something as trump.

In my game, it only applied to the dealer picking up. Otherwise you could order up/call anything you wanted.

I remember when I played spades regularly, I thought I was brilliant for coming up with an idea that is you play a high meaningless card, say an 8, then a low card, like a 5. That meant you were out of that suit. Then I played bridge and found out that was standard.

is there a reason for this? Only thing I can think of it that it prevents signaling a small amount but seems like a dumb way to cope with it.

Thats a tricky spot. If dealer is next to act, you should probably let him pick it up try to euchre them.

I think the best reason to pass is that my opponents have 8 points so getting Euchred is much more catastrophic than normal. Also have the J and the A makes my hand much better against any black suit as trump so I don't have to worry about diamonds being the only suit I ever take a trick in.

I want to play with your people. You don't happen to live in Vegas do you?

I am not a fan of saving your ace "for the end". The power of the ace is in the lead...you can be 100% certain that you have the lead now, and it's at a time when your opponents are least likely to be void in a given suit. You are afraid of them trumping your ace, but I say MAKE them trump it, which they will obviously have to do to win that trick, which you can't say about any of your other potential leads.

Leading one of your diamonds does not seem good to me. With the dealer acting last, presumably he's got a few trumps, he can now play the minimum trump that gets the job done.

Let's say your partner has the J and the T. Ordinarily your team is guaranteed at least one trick, but if you lead a low trump the dealer is acting last and can totally screw you guys due to position if he (dealer) has the J, which he probably does.

I kinda get where you are coming from in wanting to save the ace, but it's fancy play syndrome applied to euchre imo.

The only rule I'm aware of in the games I played (won't say play, because I haven't in a long time now) is that you had to have a trump in your hand in order to make a certain suit trump. I thought that was one of the official rules of the game, insofar as euchre has official rules; I'm aware there are tons of variants.

I have always assumed it was to prevent cheating, like if you're first to act after the upcard has been rejected by everyone and your partner signals that he has a good hand in a given suit. It doesn't seem like it's that necessary of a rule though.

this is standard spades strat for me as well, but it's hard to believe that some people are really tough to convince of the value of this

many spades players like to throw random cards out when ducking...they'll have 4 7 9 and throw 7 randomly...i always play low to high (assuming 11+ bid so trying to set) unless I have 2 under the J, so i'm going high-low to show i'm out

also, i count cards, so if my partner goes 4 then 7 then I know he doesn't have 5/6 and I can better know what my opponents have

flee convinced me the right play is to lead the ace of diamonds

Nich you gotta play bridge dude

I agree -- Nich was a top level Spades player and would make an excellent Bridge player.

Nich, hit me up on messenger, lets play some time.

dustinst22 on yahoo

I've called diamonds from first position a number of times after hearts is turned down without having any diamonds in my hand. The times that we win the hand my partners (the ones who actually look at the "last hand" thing on yahoo) do often think I'm cheating.

Right, if my partner has JT, then if I play the A, my partner can throw off the T and the dealer has to play the J. Now we have the two highest trump left and I have an extra diamond to throw off.

Most of the time the dealer has JJ Q/T in which case they play the J over my lead, then play the J since their partner probably have no trump. I play the 9 and then the dealer plays some other suit to save his last diamond for later.

If the dealer has the A we lose no matter what, if the dealer plays a low heart, then we play off and prey our partner has the A.

If the dealer plays a club then we play our J and hope our partner has the A

If the dealer plays a spade we win with the A and then play the K knocking out the dealer's last diamond and then prey the J somehow wins or our partner has the A

It's not much hope of Euchring but I think it's the most hope we can possibly get.


Leading the A just allows the dealer to win a trick easily with the T or Q and then they play JJ for an easy 3 tricks.

Great me too, definitely in for a spades game with Nich and anyone else who is very good some time!

i would love to dedicate time to bridge some day; i'm sure one day i will; it just is a game that I'll need some time at the start to get into due to the bidding structure and conventions; my schedule is too tight for that right now

spades does sound fun in the short-term, tho; i'll try to get a game going in the next few weeks; i'll im you, dustin; i'm never on messenger, but will let you know when i'm gonna play some spades

Cool, sounds good man. A few of us from Spades switched over to Bridge a little over a year ago and are hardcore addicted. Let's play some Spades with Lall, would be fun times.

Hey, add me to messenger -- dustinst22 on yahoo, I'll play some whenever you have some time.

i used to have a 'sweet 16' which was 16 strategies to perfect that i'd use to teach decent players who wanted to become good players

of course, come to find out most are pretty standard in bridge; makes sense cause bridge has been studied so extensively and actually has books and knowledge sharing while spades has hardly any books or knowledge sharing

coming up with and discovering them was still more helpful than reading it in a book, but i coulda saved time by picking up a bridge book

i don't remember all of them, but some that i remember:
hi/low for exactly 2 cards under J
running spades (ldo)
lho in lead on 11/12 trick
dumping high card to unblock your pard
overtaking/trumping your p's winner so you get the lead
leading from sequences
running spades when opps out to force them to discard offsuits, promoting my cards
counting losers instead of winners when you have long spades for likely 7-8+ bid
bidding long spades suits (in bridge you count 1 for 5th+ cards in suit;in spades i'd do it with 4+)
finessing
dumping losers on void suit
ducking, letting them take so you can take trick later when you need lead
leading offsuit when you and opp have last 2 spades to make opp use their final spade so you have last spade

then a few spades-specific ones regarding nil setting, nil covering, score manipulation, bags, purposefully setting yourself, etc

i'd be happy to discuss strategies around the spades specific ones if people are interested; the others are standard bridge fare, tho applying them to spades is a little different

we always played no dns, but when we did decide to play dn passing table, we had a killer strategy there as well: set ourselves on purpose while bagging the opps until they had 8-9 bags and we were 200 down...then dn and we end up tied but they have 8-9 bags so we are basically up 100

Love me some non-poker card games. Been playing Euchre since about 2004 when I met a good friend who had moved from Michigan. Never heard of the game being a California boy, but they sure love their Euchre up there.

bumping this old ass thread

Js is up, i have akqhkdjc UTG, dealer turns it down, i say i'm deciding between going alone and passing. Is going alone good at any score?

i have akqdaqh, passes around on some card to me in the 2 spot, i go alone? i guess turned down car could be important

i have jcasaqtd, some club turned up, passes to me, i call spades alone (seems super obvious)

i'm dealer score 9-4, i have Xjsqsqd9d with ts up, passes to me, i go alone?

think it's probably too thin but good with the kd9d

also after i called it alone i trumped first trick got lead led j then just went with qs even tho i could lose lead and be insta set, seems better tho obv

anyway i got laughed at for getting set going alone 3 hands in a row, but i think all are good