World of Card Games

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?

I updated Gin Rummy with a new library which should fix any problems rearranging your cards. I personally have not experienced any problems with rearranging the cards in Gin Rummy, but a few people told me that they had.

If you still have problems, please let me know. It would help if you can tell me what type of device you are using (laptop, iPad, desktop?), which browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari?), and whether you are using a mouse or touchscreen or something else. Thanks!

Gin Rummy rearranging your cards

In case you want a quick demo, I have a YouTube video which demonstrates how "drag-and-drop" works for rearranging your cards in Gin Rummy.

[Edit: this afternoon, I got reports from one person that they were having problems with Gin Rummy, so I reverted these changes for now... hopefully I can fix this, and reapply the change soon.]

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!

There was a server outage this afternoon from about 5:25 PM EST (Boston USA time) to 5:47 PM EST. It was a networking problem at the server. My apologies for the interruption in your games!

You can now see the pass direction and the number of hands that have been played in Hearts. The pass direction is shown as "<" for left, ">" for right, and "^" for across. If there was no passing, then only the hand count is shown.

Here, the pass direction is right, and it's the first hand of the game

If this feature bugs you, you can turn it off! Click on your user name in the upper right corner, and scroll down in the panel that opens until you get to the "Hide Widgets" line. Check the box next to Hearts, and the feature will turn off.

Turn off the feature by checking "Hide widgets" for Hearts in your User Settings