The G with some Basics.

[American Beauty]

I have to agree with this argument:

P leads the left, you take it with the right, and lead the Ace of trump back with very little left in hand to carry it further

The points are guaranteed.. potential of at least 3 between you, so why not see if there might be more? At this stage there is very little risk in letting your p keep the lead.

Furthermore, the left lead by partner is very telling. Let them have it.

[Dust In The Wind]

The only way I would go over my pards 'left" is if it's TRAM from there otherwise I let them have second lead.

JUST DUST

[Todd Johnson]

(3) Leading a Singleton ace into a loner on the 1st lead, is the wrong way to play it. That Ace can take a trick at any stage of the hand, DON'T lead it. Different if you have 2 aces.

Eennie Meenie

The G

Actually lets create a scenario here. You are in first seat and the dealer picks up and calls a loner in spades. You have the ace of hearts, the 9 and king of clubs, and 9 10 in diamonds. If you don't lead your single ace you will screw yourself over. I've watched coutless people lead the 9 of clubs because people tell them to never lead their single ace, only to have the dealer take it with the queen . If the dealer has two in the same offsuit as you have two in, and you lead your lower one then you are setting yourself up for failure. So the correct way to defend a loner when you have one suit with two cards, and one single ace is to lead your single ace, you will have your two cards of one suit at the end to cover their possible Ace queen.

-Todd

[the count24]

(3) Leading a Singleton ace into a loner on the 1st lead, is the wrong way to play it. That Ace can take a trick at any stage of the hand, DON'T lead it. Different if you have 2 aces.

Eennie Meenie

The G

Actually lets create a scenario here. You are in first seat and the dealer picks up and calls a loner in spades. You have the ace of hearts, the 9 and king of clubs, and 9 10 in diamonds. If you don't lead your single ace you will screw yourself over. I've watched coutless people lead the 9 of clubs because people tell them to never lead their single ace, only to have the dealer take it with the queen . If the dealer has two in the same offsuit as you have two in, and you lead your lower one then you are setting yourself up for failure. So the correct way to defend a loner when you have one suit with two cards, and one single ace is to lead your single ace, you will have your two cards of one suit at the end to cover their possible Ace queen.

-Todd

Hmmm....I still think it's mathematically better to lead either one of the 2 deep suits then to lead the ace. If the person going alond has Ac or Ad...by leading a deep suit your giving your pard an opportunity to trump when opponent may have the ace. By leading the Ace first your pard will be of no help at all...and a loner with trump and aces back will march over you.

[callme7]

The point was, that ace can take a trick at any stage of the hand if they have a heart, so why lead it? Give your partner a chance to do something on the 1st lead. Sure, you can build a scenario on why you should lead it, and in that scenario it would work, but only if they have two of the same offsuit as you, and you must have the king. Percentage wise it works out about 5% i think, far too low for me. I know from many years of playing, it is far more important to see what your P can do on the first lead, without leading something that will take care of itself later in the hand. Also, if i lead the singleton my Partner probably will just follow suit, give them a chance to play a part in the hand, because if my ace is led and trumped by the person going alone, more than likely, it's shut the door material. I wouldn't lead the 9 of clubs either, so it doesn't leave much, does it?

Eennie Meenie

The G

[Wharfie]

why the heck would you lead a solo ace into a loner. The idea is to bring your partner into the defence of it, they can't do that by you leading a solo ace on the first lead, for your partner to just follow suit. it is all very well to give scenario's, thats miracle stuff. in fact i would say it's plain stupid. Lead one of the diamonds. i tend to believe, if you lead a single ace into a loner, the opposition deserves to succeed with it. Also by doing the solo lead, you are relying on the trump maker to have the off suit that you have, maybe two cards, come on. Get your P involved. tee hee, two aces, now thats different, as Gary said, lead one of them. The Wharfman.

[daruka]

Been a while since i've posted on G's thread. But i've changed my game in so many ways over the years and the loner issue is probably one of the major plays. When i 1st learnt what a block was i over used it like most do. Then i settled into using it at crucial moments only, like being 9 - 6 or 9 - 7 up. I've come to the point now that it's pretty rare for me to block at all because there are simple ways to defend against them. I've sat in games and heard the likes of Todd, and Josh, and Justin and CC and even Brent when he utters a word in game, all say, i dont need to block because i know how to lead.

I generally try to lead what 2nd seat would have called for their pard, as the chances for ops having that suit is great, and the likelyhood of my p being able to trump it 1st round is great. But that's very very general. The hand described here is kinda fun. Personally i wouldn't lead anything other then the 9 of diamonds. Few reasons for it.

Firstly, if Mr. Hoyle was actually onto something, then 2nd seat would have called diamonds or hearts, and dealer would more then likely have one of those as an offsuit even after the discard. So you hold your ace as it can take on last trick if diamonds wasn't taken by your pard. But it also narrows down your choice of play. Nothing worse then being at the 2nd last trick and wondering what to throw off. Lead your diamond, pray your p can take it. If the dealer takes lead then from that point on you and your pard have to talk to each other with your cards. To be honest, i'm more likely to throw off the ace of hearts and let my pard know to keep their king (stars being aligned of course) and holding the 9 king clubs to beat the ace queen split on an all black hand.

Aces rarely stop loners. 2 suited Kings do! Leading a singleton ace has never seemed like a smart idea. And i think Todd is playing devils advocate for the sake of a nice debate on this thread.

[Todd Johnson]

60% of statistics are made up on the spot. Do you honestly think it is as low as 5% when the average loner is two suited or sometimes three with ace, and X offsuit. Mathamatically it is more probable for someone to go alone with this than three trump and two aces. That hand doesn't come up as often. I can create more scenarios like this, its not just a miracle hand.

If you lead your diamond first then you are forcing yourself to choose between the ace and the only double offsuit you have. Almost all of the time people have two offsuit cards of the same suit in a loner. If you are four suited or three with no trump, and you have one offsuit with two cards, and one single ace you ALWAYS lead your ace. This saves your offsuit for the end, and it doesn't make you choose between suits at the end. You don't want to screw yourself and throw away the stopper if you had it. Leading anything other than the ace forces you to choose, or gives the trump maker a chance to play low. If you had a partner that can read your cards, he/she would see your 9 of clubs on the 4th trick and know you have another club. This does get your partner involved, if they have no hearts and one trump they can trump high hoping to force the right to overtrump them, or then they watch your 9 and 10 go and know you dont have any more, common sense would say that because why? Think about it....

When you defend a loner, or play any hand out for that matter, put yourself in the other persons spot. Based on what cards you have and the cards you see being played, what else could be in their hand? When you have a good idea of what is in the opponents hand then you always have a slight advantage over your opposition. This creates the natural phenomonon known as "Todd Cards."

Daruka - You got the first two guys right, but the rest of those guys in that list block like crazy. If you lead your diamond first then you are forcing yourself to choose between a club and a heart, why? If you lead ace first then you keep your double suit, and a smart partner will see this once you play the 9 on the fourth trick and play accordingly. The first lead is the most powerful tool against a loner. If you ALWAYS play a certain way then people are going to pick up on it and use it to their advantage.

Since I almost never block, I have had the opportunity to study every loner that was called on me and figure out what was a stopper (if any). We can say we wouldnt lead the 9, but I've watched countless people do it, myself included. I can send you the text file of the log in the game you recently did it in Garry, if you'd like.

We can debate for countless hours, but in the end really the only thing that tells the truth is numbers.

If you guys don't believe me then hey I can't force you to have an open mind and to stop playing a set way. Just stop complaining about the amount of loners being made when you could have stopped it by leading your single ace once in a while.

[Ratwhowillbeking]

I wouldn't tell someone I was trying to teach this, but there are times when I would lead a singleton ace. The general rule G suggests is a good one.

The problem with the scenarios people seem to cook up on here is we generally don't take into account who we are playing with and against.... which so often changes my leads so I won't weigh in on this one.

And keep in mind that even if your lead is the best choice 60% of the time, you still look like an idiot the other 40% of the time.

[American Beauty]

You are in first seat and the dealer picks up and calls a loner in spades. You have the ace of hearts, the 9 and king of clubs, and 9 10 in diamonds.

What am I missing here? There are two aces.

Ace Hearts
King of Clubs with 9 of Clubs backer
9 and 10 of Diamonds

[Dust In The Wind]

I always figure I have a 1 in 3 chance of stopping the loner when it's called. Chances are the one calling the loner has one off suit and maybe 2 off suits. They get the lead and chances are they are going to run trump to force you into a dec. on throwing the one stopper you have over another. Here I feel it is important to watch your pards throws also if you don't stop them on the first lead if you have 2 in your hand and see what your pard is keeping to stop. I will lead the Ace in this instance for a couple of reasons, it is boss in that suit if they happen to have one and stops the loner on the first trick and I still have one "Ace" as AB pointed out left if they happen to have Ace and another club sitting in the hole for the stopper. I also force a trump if my ace doesn't fly and may put my pard in a better position to stop them.

Another reason to go with the Ace H is you have 2 clubs and 2 diamonds, the odds are against you that either is their off suit and if it was diamonds you have nothing with the 9 and 10. If you lead the king and they have 2 clubs you just lost that battle leading the king if they have ace and any other club since you have king/9, so you stay away from that lead.

Yes there is an outside chance that if you lead the diamond your pard has the ace and the loner hand has on other D, but odds are against you. To me the best and only lead is the Ace H from first seat.

JUST DUST

[callme7]

Yep, thousands of scenarios, we can all do them. As for making up statistics on the spot, nope i don't do that, i have a statistics manager to do that for me. If you work out the different card combinations, not just the SUITS, you will find that the 5% aint far out. I didn't say i would never lead the 9 of clubs, just 90% of the time i will keep the singleton ace and test my P on the 1st lead. If we all played the same, we might as well go play with the Bots. The main thing i find about holding the singleton back, you don't have to pull your hair out at the finish, if it's going to stop the loner i will have it at the end, mostly. Actually there is a couple of scenarios when i do lead the singleton, watch out for it Todd.

Eennie Meenie

The G

[callme7]

Have had quite a few IMs and emails on what has been discussed in the forum lately eg. scenarios, different players play patterns, why they shouldn't do this, should do that etc. I thought about it pretty deeply and i don't only feel, i know the playing standard on HW within those top players is nothing less than remarkable. Hell i don't want them all to play the same, how damn boring. As you know i watch a huge amount when my time permits and are gobsmacked with some of the plays, they are quite brilliant. They play the percentages perfectly, they might not work one day but they do it all again the next day and it pays off handsomely in the end. I have watched the best players on the planet in many many countries and believe me, Hardwood have more than their share of the best. Who cares if they are rubbished by certain people, at the end of the day, year in and year out, they are still at the top, and they do it honestly. It is so infuriating to see players putting in their profiles how the top ranked players cheat. Just keep it up guys, you are great to watch.

Eennie Meenie

The G

[Dust In The Wind]

I agree, 99% of the high rated players do not do it by cheating, some because if they are not that good they can't maintain it against real players. Yes there are a few and really don't know why they do it, it serves no purpose. I have always considered Euchre a game of chances and if your not taking chances your not winning as many as you could because the percentages are there. Odds are odds but gut sometimes tells you what to do, call it the opts. facial expressions LOL, I don't know but it's like you just got to and the gut knows....

Man I got to get back to finding some time to play euchre again... MOVE OVER OGRE COMING BACK!!!

JUST DUST

[Wharfie]

I happened to be watching some 2150 games last night. Now i am no great chop as a player, but one of the top players on the site, possibly the top player on the site, jumped out of the game half way through after his P was trying to tell him what to do, more than once. All i can say is the player that was preaching made so many mistakes it wasnt funny. Please help me out here people, why would a top player be telling another top player how to play a hand out, all these guys are great players. The player preaching obviously hasnt ever heard of the "next" call because he seemed to want to cross everytime when the deal was turned down, left his P hanging out to dry often. i don't understand why players cross in the 1st seat when they have nothing, or very very little, is it because they are scared the dealer is bagging, at that level i mean, help me here, because i just don't get it. He hardly succeeded at all. wharfman.