World of Card Games

The Elo ratings for non-team games have been modified slightly. Previously, the formula computed the Elo rating as if each person were in a match against the other three people in the game. The new version of your Elo rating treats the game as a single match. This means that your Elo rating will change somewhat less with each ranked game that you play from now on. It also means that players will no longer sometimes win a few Elo points, even when losing the game, which was a point of confusion for many people. So I think the new method is an improvement. I hope you agree! Thanks to the player who suggested this modification, and was so helpful during the implementation of it!

There's been a problem at the server that required it to be rebooted.

Usually, the site can issue an alert in advance of this happening. Unfortunately, this time, that was not possible.

I'm very sorry for the unexpected interruption in your games! The site was down for about 45 minutes starting at 4:45 AM Eastern USA time. But it is now back up again. Thank you for your patience!

The server company where World of Card Games is hosted is having some network issues (this started at Aug 24, 15:08 CDT and appears to be ongoing).

You may be able to play games, but might experience problems.

If you see things that look strange, like cards piled up, please reload the web page in your web browser.  The F5 key works to do this for some systems. If you get a blank page loading, wait a short while, and try reloading the page again.

The server people have let me know that they're looking into the problem but I do not know when it will be resolved. My apologies!

Update August 25 at 9:10 CDT. The server company says that the problem has been resolved. It was a networking issue from one of their upstream providers. And now you know as much as I do! Sorry for any interruptions in your games!

The site was down for about 15 minutes this morning for some maintenance. An update has been applied to the Euchre bots. Someone reported that the bots were excessively careful in "guarding the left". They didn't try to trump even when they had three trump cards including the left bower, a case which would assure that the left remained guarded. This problem should be fixed now.

The site was down for about 10 minutes this morning for some maintenance.

An update has been applied that tweaks the Euchre bots' tactics. I have a couple of pages that explain what was done.

First, the Euchre bots will now always lead trump if they are left of dealer and their 3rd seat partner declared trump. That page has some stats which indicate it is a successful tactic.

Second, the Euchre bots now have an improved algorithm for calling the up card when they are the dealer. If calling up will result in them having 3 trump cards, they will always call up. For example, if the up card is the 9 of clubs, and they have the 10 of clubs and the jack of spades, they will order the up card into their hand. That would give them 3 trump: the 9, 10, and left bower. If you visit that page to which I linked, you'll see some statistics that I ran which indicate this is a great tactic!

Finally, the Euchre bots will now always go alone when they have 5 trump cards. The logic goes like this: Suppose you have 5 trump cards. That's an excellent hand, and in the worst case you have the lowest 5 trump: 9, 10, queen, king, and ace. So let's look at this worst case. If your partner has the two bowers, then not going alone will help you get 2 points. However, going alone will ensure you get 4 points! Which is better? The 4 points, of course, so you should go alone. And what if your opponents have the left and right bower? Well, you'll only get 1 point, anyway, whether or not you go alone. There's exactly one case where your partner might help you get 2 points instead of 1 point. Suppose your partner has the right bower, and one of your opponents has the left bower. In that scenario, by going alone, you're going to get only 1 point instead of 2.

In the long run, the risk of getting only 1 point vs 2 is outweighed by the benefit of getting 4 points when going alone. Most of the time, your partner won't be able to help you, and it benefits the team to take the risk.

I hope you find that these changes in the Euchre bots make them a little better as a partner!

Should I order up?