World of Card Games

Here's another post for the Euchre fans! Have you ever heard about the "reverse next" strategy? Recently, I've explored some statistics about how often "reverse next" can be used, and whether it works. Click that link to get the full scoop!

my partner, the dealer, is going to pass on this up card, a jack...

I'll call clubs with only the king and nine of clubs, using "reverse next" strategy. Will it work??

I've collected some statistics about the "consider" phase in Euchre, as played at World of Card Games. If you like Euchre, you might enjoy reading this! Click the link above to see more.

what are your chances of calling trump if you're the dealer?

[Edit: I added a second page of stats - check out part II.]

I've written a page which describes a tactic that can be used to stop a loner in Euchre. Anyone who plays Euchre may want to take a look at that. What do you think?

It can be so frustrating when your opponent "goes alone" - you may feel like you should just give up. But a lot of loners are not certain, by any means. You should always play your cards as if you are defending against a loner that can be foiled. The page I linked to above is one of my thoughts about how to do it. I've seen it work many times!

Today, we have a guest blog from DevilDoc about the nil bid in Spades. I have added some links to definitions of "jargon" terms to help beginners. There's also an intro to nil bidding at the World of Card Games website. - Marya

The nil bid in Spades is the strongest of all the bids one can make. Worth 100 points, it represents 20% of the total game score if your partnership makes it. It also costs your partnership 100 points if you get set plus the penalty for your partner’s bid.

How to bid a nil: The ideal hand should be rich in distribution; i.e., singletons, doubletons, and voids. Ideally, you don’t want any honor [face] cards but if you have any, they should be protected by at least two low cards. The maximum number of spades should not exceed three, with no higher card than the Jack (25% probability of being set). While some will use the Queen of Spades, your probability of being set rises to 50%.

How to defend a nil: The bidding player needs to focus on his loser cards. You want to discard your highest cards as soon as safely possible. If your partner is running a long suit or you have a good distribution, that is the easiest way to get rid of your riskiest cards. The bidder’s partner needs to lead out with the highest card of his longest suit and keep running that suit, from high to low cards if possible. If the bidder’s partner’s hand is weak, he should focus on what the opponents are leading to see if they can cover your cards.

- DevilDoc

About a week ago, someone reported to me that they tried to download a hand history in Internet Explorer, but a problem occurred - the file was not correctly downloaded.

It turns out that there was a problem with this download in both Internet Explorer and Edge (two common Windows browsers).

As of this morning, the problems have been fixed. So you should now be able to download hand histories for Euchre, Hearts, Spades, and Pinochle.

Click here to download previous hand history

floppy disk icon

Some people like to download hand histories so they can review what happened in the previous hand. They are also useful when reporting bad card-playing strategy by the bots. If you want to report such a problem with the bots, it's helpful to me if you email me a copy of the hand history when you saw the problem - that way, I can most easily figure out what went wrong. Without it, it's like searching for a needle in a haystack.

I took part in another tournament this morning. It was fun!

During the game I was presented with a bit of a puzzler. I was dealt 7 Spades but most of them were pretty low.

what would you bid with 7 Spades?

I wound up bidding 3, while nana bid 6. Notice the scores and bag situation. I've posted more details on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/WorldOfCardGames/photos/a.1453220478280028.1073741829.1384938725108204/1566662763602465/?type=1&theater

You don't have to be a Facebook user to see the Facebook post. I am curious to know what you would have bid, and why - you can comment here, or on Facebook.

I recently participated in one of our Jungle Gym Spades online tournaments. My partner and I progressed to Round 2, but we lost. It was a fun game... and I had a very interesting hand during Round 2. If you enjoy considering Spades strategy, I think you will find it interesting to read my discussion of this hand on the World of Card Games Facebook page. Take a look and let me know what you think in the comments: https://www.facebook.com/WorldOfCardGames/photos/a.1453220478280028.1073741829.1384938725108204/1557288481206560/?type=1

There's a Hearts tutorial at World of Card Games. It's designed to introduce you to the mechanics of Hearts, but barely scratches the surface when it comes to strategy. The help box has a few hints, too, but it's minimal.

After playing a few hundred games of Hearts, I think I've gotten a little better at it. This was, in part, due to some players who discussed strategy with me. Thanks to those who did so in a polite manner, you know who you are!

It's nice to share, so I wrote up a discussion of Hearts strategy and placed it on the site. There's a comment section where anyone can add their thoughts, and you can also tweet them, or post in the comments section here. Or send me an email. I will rewrite sections of that page based upon feedback.

I want to mention that I like the way that some more expert players try to help those who are beginners to the games. I don't mean the ones who mock beginners! I mean the ones who offer to explain or give a short tip to people who confess to being inexperienced. It benefits everyone to help those who are new. They are more likely to continue to play when people are friendly and not mean. It's a win-win to get more good players to your favorite card game.

Tom Servo says "want to play a game of Spades?"

In June, I took a stab at improving the robot strategy in the game of Spades.

I've taken more time to revamp the Spades bots, and those changes were deployed this morning. Both bidding, and choosing a card to play, have been substantially reworked. The bots are still far from perfect - there are some subtleties in Spades that I haven't handled, but I will eventually get to them. For now, I think that their new behavior makes them better players in general, and better partners, too.

If anyone notices specific bad habits that linger on, I'd like to hear about it. Feel free to write me at marya@worldofcardgames.com or just post the issue in the comments section.

It surprises me, but I've had only a few complaints about the bot strategy in Spades. I rarely play with bots, so their problems haven't bugged me too much, and I haven't been highly motivated to fix them. However, when I do play, I've noticed one pretty obvious and irritating behavior: they tend to waste Kings. They'll play the King of clubs, for example, before the Ace of clubs has been played. This is a good way to lose the trick! With today's deploy, this bug is fixed.

In addition, someone mentioned to me that the bots sometimes bid nil when they are holding 5 spades! You will find various sites that recommend you not bid nil with 4 or more spades in your hand (e.g. sky_rockets1's page or the Rules of Spades site). This problem has been fixed as well.

I am far from finished with the bots. More improvements will be coming, when I have the time for it.

let's hope he's smiling because he got the bid right!

Last night, I attended another live, in-person card game session. We started out to play Spades. It turned out that my partner was new to the game, so it was decided to play a few rounds open-handed, so we could explain the rules and a bit of strategy. This turned out to be an interesting exercise.

Spades game, first hand, East leads. I'm playing the King and the Ace is still out there.

The initial hand is shown in the photo above. The dealer is North. I am South, and I bid 2. I did this despite the fact that I had a fairly strong set of spades. My thought process went like this in developing my bid:

• I have a lot of clubs, almost 50% of the clubs at the table. I can't count on the King of clubs winning a trick; it will very likely be trumped. So I won't include that in my bid.
• My diamond and hearts cards are useless.
• I may not be able to create a void very early in the game. I felt uncomfortable assuming that my one of my high spades would not be trumped by the Ace at some point.
• My best bet seemed to be aiming low, and dumping a couple high cards where possible. I figured that with a bid of 2, I might wind up with one bag if I took tricks with all of my spades cards. I thought that I'd pretty easily be able to dump the King of clubs.

Notice the total of all bids is 9! That leaves 4 bags on the table. After all bids were made, I was sure I'd make my bid, and definitely did not want to take a trick with the King of clubs.

The game started with East playing the 4 of clubs. With this play, it seemed unlikely to me that East was holding the Ace of clubs. I figured the Ace must be held by West or by my partner, North.

Whoever had the Ace was probably counting on using it to take a trick. I decided I would dump my King now. If my West opponent had the Ace, they would probably feel compelled to use it in order to make their bid. If my partner had the Ace, they would surely play it even though it meant trumping me. Anyone who plays a King in the first round must know that it will very likely be taken. My partner should realize that I knew that, and that I must be trying to dump my King. Especially seeing how many bags were at the table, it should be clear I was trying to get rid of a high card which might lead to a bag.

It turned out that my partner was holding the Ace of clubs. Since we were playing open-handed, my opponents both advised my partner not to trump me ("never trump your partner")... when in fact I wanted that to happen!

When I explained to the table my reasoning for playing the King, both of my opponents disagreed. They told me that if they were my partner, they would never overtrump me if they had the Ace - instead they would let me take the trick (in this case, this would likely lead to me earning at least one bag).

This kind of surprised me. In Spades, when there are so many bags on the table, it makes more sense to try to load the other team with all the bags, rather than to try to set them. So, I would try to take as few tricks as possible. I would assume my partner was aware that playing a King when the Ace has not yet been played would almost certainly lead to it being taken, and would therefore feel no need to refrain from trumping the King.

I am curious to know what other people think ... Do you just never trump your partner unless you have no choice? Or do you sometimes trump when it seems clear that they haven't planned on taking the trick?

davidly wrote in a comment to this blog,

"Not infrequently, a losing player will leave the game as late as during the last hand, the last trick of the last hand, or even before the screen registers their loss...

...this usually prompts a reaction in the chat regarding being a poor sport. But the registered opponents remain--I assume, so that they'll get the win. I have to wonder if they consider that waiting for the next player to happen along is just as unfair as the original player's having left the game in the first place: the remaining players are just as selfishly sticking the new person with an undeserved loss."

Interesting comment!

I don't understand people who leave a game when losing. Don't get me wrong; I don't like losing! But who wants to win all the time? What would be the challenge in that?

I'm a "completionist" - I want to see the game through to its completion. Maybe I'm a little OCD in this respect? I always figured that many others are the same way - the people sticking around at the end of a game just want to finish the darn game, no matter who wins or loses. It had not occurred to me that they are sticking around to score a win. But I'm not the only one waiting to accept my loss; I've noticed many others doing this. So I think there are a bunch of other completionists like me out there.

I'm surprised if it's true that people are willing to sit around waiting for some "sucker" to come in and finish the game, just so that they will get one more win added to their score. Maybe these are the same people who leave early when they are losing?

World of Card Games does not yet have rankings, so your win/loss ratio is something only you will know about yourself - and if you refuse to accept losses, then you must know that your win ratio is high exactly because of your poor sportsmanship in leaving a game early! I find it peculiar that anyone would gloat over a score earned in this manner.

Failing to accept a loss in a simple game of cards strikes me as extremely childish. But you will run into people like this when you play on the internet. I've played in-person games with full-grown adults who take losing very poorly as well, so it doesn't surprise me that people have even worse behavior online.

One of the main reasons I play is because I enjoy the combination of strategizing and socializing. Winning is fun, but I've enjoyed many games where I lose terribly. How about you?