You're in seat 1, leading 7-1. Dealer turns down ♠.
Your hand is A♦ 9♦ J♥ K♥ Q♣. Under Perry's points system, hearts is the right call (19 to 18 over diamonds), but that extra trump in diamonds looks tempting. What's your call, and what do you lead?
I was dealing and turned up A. I also had LQ, A of one green suit and KT in the other. Now I know in general that you should try to go two-suited, but just how solid a rule is that when you're faced with dumping an ace, and is your answer different based on the score?
One of my New Year's resolutions is to become a better euchre player. I've been playing for several years, but I haven't progressed much past the 'average casual player' level. I've joined the Euchre Science group on Yahoo!, and I'm starting to read Natty Bumpo's euchre columns, but the site I'm getting the most out of - and the one that will be hitting the blogroll the next time I update it - is the very very nice Euchre Universe. If you're looking to up your game, it's worth reading from the beginning.
You and your partner are down 8-6. Everybody passed on the up card, A♠. You are on dealer's left and have the bid and first lead. You're holding J♦ J♥ A♣ J♣ 9♣.
Do you bid? What suit? Do you go alone? Feel free to comment before reading about what I did, which appears after the jump.
I went red and took my partner with me. I was a little concerned about being euchred if I went alone (either opponent having three trump and no clubs would have done it), which would have ended the game, and I thought I had a better shot of marching with my partner than without.
Turns out I could have gone alone. It played out exactly like I'd hoped: nobody had three trumps or three clubs, and I took all the tricks without any help from my partner. No matter - we ended up winning the game later anyway.