Sunday, February 04, 2007

More euchre math to make you feel marvelous

The basis for any good strategy is mathematics and probability. It's also the basis for making yourself feel good about your play even when you are losing to inferior players. That's why we write about it a fair amount on the Euchre Universe.

Last week as my partner and I watched our opponents turn over bower after bower upcards it made me wonder...

What is the effect of the upcard on a given euchre hand?

So, I cranked up the excellent euchre simulator software (Euchre Challenge) and ran a few experiments. I did 400 hand simulations. The most interesting results are as follows.

Euchre experimental findings

+The dealing team always has the advantage. Depending on the value of the upcard, they should expect to score points 67 – 80% of the time.

+It makes little difference if the upcard is 9, 10, or Q. Even K is only a tiny bit better.

+An Ace gives the dealing team about 5% more chance of scoring points.

+A bower is best scoring the dealing team positive points nearly 80% of the time.

Euchre statistics when a bower is the upcard

To give you an example of what you can expect when a bower is the upcard, here is what the simulator showed.

Frequency that dealer's team scores points = 78%

+Team makes their point = 52%

+Team sweeps = 3%

+Team makes a loner 11%

+Team euchres the opponents = 12%

Frequency that non-dealing team score points = 22%

+Team makes their point = 11%

+Team sweeps = 8%

+Team makes a loner 1%

+Team euchres the opponents = 2%

So, clearly it is good to be the dealer. And it shows you why the "steal the deal" gambit is so effective. If you'd like to see the raw data of the experiment you can click here.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have the right bower and queen of diamonds, an ace of clubs, an ace of spades and a nine of hearts. I order my partner up with a ten of diamonds. My opponent leads a heart. I put on my nine of hearts. The opponent on my left takes the trick with the ace of hearts. He leads the king of hearts back and my partner trumps it with the ten of diamonds. The opponent on the right throws off on the trick. NOW!!! I can let my partner take the trick which would put me in the middle behind the opponent on the left or I can overtrump my partner and lead back the right, hoping to pull trump and make my aces good. Which way do I go?