Reviews
of books on euchre
by Natty Bumppo, author,
The Columbus Book of
Euchre
Published since 1982:
Published prior to 1906:
The Law and Practice of the Game of Euchre
by a Professor (1862)
Euchre: How to Play It
(anonymous, 1886)
Keller, The Game of Euchre
(1887)
Berkeley, Écarté and Euchre
(1890)
Euchre and How to Play It
(anonymous, 1897)
Catherine Perry Hargraves History of Playing Cards and
Bibliography (Dover, New York, 1966) lists a number of early
books on euchre:
John W. Keller, The
Game of Euchre (1887, Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 82 pages);
Cavendish, The Pocket Guide to Euchre (1890, Thomas de la Rue & Co. Ltd.,
London); Berkeley, Écarté and Euchre (1890, George Bell & Sons, London, 79 pp.);
Progressive Euchre (1890, author unidentified, Joseph E. Church, Cincinnati), and
R. F. Foster, Call Ace Euchre (1905, Brentanos, New York).
Hargraves bibliography lists also four books on 500, the deliberately invented
super euchre game commissioned by the United States Playing Card Company,
all published between 1899 and 1909.
We now know, through the sweep of Amazon.com, Abebooks.com and the rest of the internet, that
there were a few 19th century books on euchre that Hargrave overlooked, including, at least,
The Game of Euchre with Its Laws (1850; author and publisher unknown;
we have only seen this book listed in the Oxford English Dictionary and mentioned in the next
book); The Law and Practice of the Game of Euchre by a Professor (1862,
T. B. Peterson & Bros., Philadelphia, 134 pages);
Euchre:
How to Play It (ca. 1886,
author unidentified, Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, London and Canberra, 124 pp.);
A. Howard Cady, Euchre:
A Treatise on
the Game and Its Origin:
With Descriptions of
Its Several Varieties etc. (1895, American Sports Pub. Co.,
44 pp.), and Euchre and How to Play It (1897, 1903, author unidentified,
United States Playing Card Company, Cincinnati, 34 pp.).
Since the publication of Fosters book in 1905, there seem to have been no books
published specifically on euchre until the first edition of The Columbus Book of Euchre
was published in 1982.
All those earlier books
are out of print and hard to find.
Foster was
the author also, however, of Fosters Complete Hoyle, reprinted in 1963 and
accessible (1897, 1963, J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia).
It contains a long section on euchre, including a subsection headed METHODS OF
CHEATING.
The publication of The Columbus Book of Euchre in June of 1982 was followed quickly
by the publication in August of the same year of Gary Martins Euchre:
How to Play and Win (1982, Martin, Fort Wayne, 64 pp.).
Both Martins book and the first edition of The Columbus Book of Euchre were
desktop publications created before personal computers made desktop
publishing a household possibility and are, therefore, both a little rough
typographically.
Since 1990 and the advent of
personal computer desktop publishing, a number of other books and a videotape on
euchre have appeared.
And while they are
understandably more attractive than Martins book and the first edition of The
Columbus Book of Euchre, Martins and The Columbus Book of Euchre remained
the only good books on euchre in print until the appearance of Joe Andrews new
book.
Reviews of Andrews, Martins
and other books in print on euchre follow, along with reviews of those out-of-print 19th
century books we have managed to find.
Euchre:
How to Play and Win,
by Gary Martin,
Martin, Fort Wayne, 1982, 64 pp., $4.95
|
This is an instructive and useful little book.
And its one of only two books in print on euchre that get almost everything
right (the other is The Columbus Book of
Euchre). There are no glaring errors.
There are some highly helpful hints on what to lead, and an
interesting suggestion to lead a nine to save an ace (pp.
25-27. The author
may have a point, but he does not explain it).
Theres an interesting section on bid euchre (both
partner and buck), with good in- struction.
There are some annoying grammatical errors, such as lead
as the past tense of lead going on for several pages
beginning |
at page 23 (the author finally gets it right with
led at page 32), and some syntactical num- ber
confusion (e.g., at p. 32, If diamonds
is trump . . . , and at p. 38, In
buck euchre each player plays for himself . . . .
Each player bids on the number of tricks each feels they
can win).
And because the book was printed before personal computers made
desktop publish- ing a household possibility, its
not the most attractive book out there:
The only color is on the cover, and the small type makes it a
little hard to read.
But the content of the book makes it well worth the price. |
The Complete Win at Euchre,
by Joseph D. Andrews
Games by Andrews Inc., Melrose, Mass., 2004, 171 pp., $12.95
|
One of Joe Andrews criteria for a book, it seems, is that it must
have at least 100 pages. In correspondence with me in 2001 over the prospect
of collaborating on a euchre book, he referred to The Columbus Book of Eu- chre
as a Booklet;* and in a list of five oth- er euchre books in his own new
book, The Complete Win at Euchre, he takes care to point out that only
Wergin on Euchre has more than 100 pages.
And, I must admit, The Columbus Book of Euchre, listed at 90 pages, does not
contain 90 full pages of euchre.
Subtracting title pages,
-----------------------------------------------
* Capitalized, yet:
... your Booklet ... my Books .... |
index pages and the like, and solely decorative
illustrations taking up whole pages reduces it to 75.
By similar subtractions you can get The Complete Win at Euchres
171 pages down to 151, but thats still more than Wergins 137.
So if I want a competitive euchre book, it seems, I have to get those
skinny 75 pages up to 150 or more.
Taking a tip from Joes book, I have found some ways:
Use big type and lots of inner headlines.
If I
cut my average 38 lines a page to Joes 30,
Im up to 95 pages already.
Use lots of repetition.
State the rules twice
(once in The Basics, once Official).
In |
describing variants of the game, such as
British Euchre and nine different ways
people all over North America play bid
euchre, state the complete rules for each
variant in each description instead of merely
the contrasting rules that make each variant
unique. Now I have 113 pages.
Pad the book with pages having nothing
specifically to do with euchre, such as a
four-page history of the United States
Playing Card Company, a two-page history
of playing cards, and seven pages of Pro-
files in Courage Euchre (at a page apiece,
with plenty of white space if there is not a
whole page of nice things to say) about peo-
ple the readers have never heard of who
have not made much of a difference in the
history of euchre (I will grant that three of
Joes ten Profiles in Courage Euchre might |
be warranted). Now I have 126 pages.
Throw in articles by other writers, slap-
dash (Joe wrote less than three-fourths
of the text of his own book. Some
out-
side contributions just barely touch on the
subject matter. The inserts include a two-
page history of jacks, by Daphne Tregear,
and five pages on Euchre Math written
by Richard Freedman, which, although
somewhat interesting, is of little practical
use). Im up to 144 pages now (without
counting the history of the United States
Playing Card Company or anything else
twice) and Ive passed Wergin.
Pad the book further with three full pages of
pictures of the four full suits of cards available
in each euchre hand and accounts of 23
Classic Hands the author has observed, |
with a one-page illustration of each (thats 47
more pages). Now I have 184 pages.
Re-
store the title and index pages and the dec-
orations and Im just a page shy of 200.
Hope you like my book.
Although Joes book describes British Eu- chre and nine variants
of bid euchre in excru- ciating detail, theres not a word on two-han- ded
euchre or euchre solitaire. Lets
face it, its just another thin book on euchre.
That doesnt mean its a bad book.
Its not. Most of it is correct
and helpful. My general criti- cism
is that its heavy on example and lean on principle.
There are too many possible situations to cover, teaching by example.
The Bidding Skills Twenty Questions in Joes book deal
only with whether the dealer should pick |
up or turn down in the given scenarios; there are no specific
lessons for the players in first, second or third chairs, and none for the dealer
on second round. Eight examples are
given in the Opening Leads quiz, but no instructive scenarios for
leads to second and subsequent tricks.
And the four Play of the Hand sam- ples given are rather meager.
The Classic Hands are but 23 out of thousands.
Joe does do well on his examples, although I find debatable his conclusions on
Nos. 8 and 20 of his Bidding Skills questions, on Nos. 1,
3 and 8 of his Opening Leads quiz, and on Nos. 3 and 4 of his
Play of the Hand ex- amples (try them yourself).
I did not review all the Classic Hands they are presented as
much as profiles in courage excitement as right or wrong but I
noticed that Joe overlooked a good potential opening lead on the first one. |
I said most of the book is correct.
Some things arent. For
example:
Joe speaks of euchre played in the 18th cen-
tury. There is no evidence that euchre
was
played before the 19th century.
(Écarté and
Jucker, each believed by various scholars to
be the root of euchre, also date only to the
early 19th century.)
Joe says that as dealers partner you should
order anytime you have two strong
trump
. . . (p. 51; my emphasis).
I dont think so.
Good way to queer your partners loner.
Trust him, if you have nothing else or have
an answer to other suits.
Why do you sup-
pose the Canadians have that silly rule requi-
ring the partner to go alone if he assists?
Joe says, categorically, to never call a loner |
when the score is 8-8 (p. 59; his emphasis).
If the hand in his Bidding Skills question
No. 17, where he first suggests that, had lower trump or one fewer trump, it would be
a perfect example of when you should go
alone with eight points, to keep your partner
from taking the lead on first trick and being unable to lead trump back to you.
Incredibly, he says that if you have 6 or 7
points to your opponents 9, a loner . . . is
a virtual forced call, especially if you hold
junk! (emphasis his).
Theres a questionable use of the word
sandbagging.
And Joes book contains constant reference
to auction and bidding to make trump.
Aside from the power of jacks, perhaps the |
most distinctive thing about euchre as op-
posed to other trick-taking games such as
bridge and spades is that in
euchre you do
not make trump by bidding.
You order,
assist, pick up or name trump in euchre (as
in the extinct games écarté and triumph).
The only bidding that goes on in euchre
i.e., claiming in advance the number of tricks
you will take is in the many versions of bid
euchre, which, all taken together, do not
claim nearly as large a following as the stan-
dard game.
I would like to attribute a few things in Joes book to Natty Bumppo, since
Joe didnt bother:
1. The etymology of the word
joker, on
page 7, is taken from a hypothesis in David
Parletts Oxford Guide to Card Games
extended in The Columbus Book of Eu- |
chre, without attribution to either (but
with Jucker misspelled).
2. And Joes special thanks
to Harvey Lapp
for his Ten Commandments of Euchre
(pp. 43-48) overlooks Lapps own ac-
knowledgment, on his Commandments
page, of Natty Bumppo for his special
contributions and editing.
3. Joe heaps acknowledgment on
John Mc-
Leod, proprietor of the Card Games web
site, but does not mention McLeods
gracious acknowledgment of Natty
Bumppo and The Columbus Book of
Euchre (the definitive guide to American
euchre, McLeod calls it) on the Card
Games euchre page; and Joe ignores his
own previous
credit to me, in which he
says, . . . [S]ome very fine books have |
Winning at
Euchre,
by Thomas A. Gallagher,
1991
(publisher & city not disclosed), 60 pp., $3.95
|
Gallaghers booklet has a Gorenesque point system for
evaluating a euchre hand.
And while that is its salient feature, its best feature
(aside from the misuse of the words bid and bidder; see
review of Joe Andrews book, above) is the second little paragraph in the
In- troduction:
Euchre is a bidders game.
You must bid at every opportunity. . . .
Just to sit back and pass or hope to euchre your oppo- nents is a losers
game. . . .
Another section, the three Most Common Errors by Euchre
Players, is right on:
Passing a makeable hand, failing to lead trump on of- fense,
leading trump on defense.
(Trumping a |
partners ace is left out, but it is enjoined in
bold type on the previous page.)
The point system assigns four points to a right bower, three
to a left, two to each other trump card, and one to each ace in
the off suits, for a total of 20 high card points.
Then the author concludes, and attempts to demon- strate,
that you need 10 points to go alone, and that you should order
or pick up with 7 points (but need only 5 to assist
and thats a flaw, since it encourages a dealers
partner, who normally should keep his mouth shut).
But the math is a little fuzzy.
For example, |
the author states that if you have 8 points, your opponents
have 6, your partner has 3, and the pack has 3.
The actual probability is, the op- ponents have
6.7, the partner has 3.3, and
the pack (i.e., the three cards remaining
bur- ied, or unseen) has only 2.
On average each hand is 167 per cent as strong as the pack.
The author says, at page 3, that a 10-point hand cannot
be euchred.
Accompanying the discussion of the point system is a one-page
chart of biddable hands from 7 to 13 points.
The chart lists four possible 10-point hold- ings,
all of which can be euchred, but omits two (1)
a left with three other trump and an outside ace, which also can be
euchred (by Right-Ace-x of trumps held by an opponent), |
and (2) a holding of five trumps without bow- ers,
which is the only 10-point hand that cannot
be euchred. The
error lies in ranking a 9, 10 or queen of trumps as high as
an ace or king.
And the authors assertion that you must have at least
10 high card points to go alone seems rather timid
from one who says you must bid to win.
Natty Bumppos Columbus Book of
Euchre, at pp. 42-43, lists four 8- point
holdings that are excellent candidates for loners, and even a
hand of 2 or 3 points that will do the trick on a long
shot. And Gary
Martin, at p. 20 of his Euchre: How to
Play and Win, shows a 7-point hand he
recom- mends going alone on. |
None of which is to say the point system is shoddy by and
large, it works.
But it is flawed.
For further examples:
(1) It fails to distinguish between the value of a next
ace and one of the other color.
An ace off color is much more valuable.
(2) It fails to evaluate distribution.
The Goren point system in bridge gives a void the second highest
value, comparable to that of the left bower in Gallaghers
euchre system.
Also in euchre a singleton ace is worth more than a doubleton
ace; an ace heading a three-card suit is virtually worthless, and
a two-suited hand has a value not addressed by Gallagher. |
(3) It gives no value to kings.
While a king often has no value in euchre, it has tremen- dous
value in a two-suited hand or if its ace is buried or in partners
hand.
Another problem with playing by the num- bers is that each
euchre hand is situational its not only the
cards that matter, but also the position (where you
sit at the table, which is so much more important in a
short game like euchre than in a long game like bridge or spades),
and the score (many things you will do at 6 or 7, or at 8
or 9, or when your oppo- nents are at 6 or 7 or at 8 or 9, you
will not do at other scores).
You play by Gallagher, I play by instinct, and Ill beat
you. |
Euchre:
The
Grandpa Lou Way,
by John Ellis
Wednesday Morning Productions, Kleinburg, Ontario, 1996, 76 pp., $8.95
|
This book might be more appropriately ti- tled Euchre for Dummies,
or, even, Cards for Dummies, so basic and simplistic it is.
And thin: Of 76 pages,
18 are blank, title or dedication pages; 4 are full-page illustrations,
and 9 more are nearly full-page illustrations all for
$8.95.
Of the 45 pages remaining, four are devoted to Old Maid instructions
on card playing: Which
is the higher card, a 9 or a 10?
a king or an ace? What is a
trick? What is trump?
What does it mean to lead?
to follow suit?
It may have been written by a Dummy, so |
weak is the grammar.
The author seems to have particular difficulty with syntactical
num- ber for example, on page 49 alone:
Before either one of them pick up or order
. . . , they . . . ;
Unless they are a novice . . . , and
Learn how to assess another players bench strength
so that you can compare your own to theirs.
When someone else makes trump, you may have some clues about
their strength (emphasis added).
Inconsistency in use of terms also is dis- tracting:
On page 12, the word round is used as a synonym for a
hand of five tricks. |
Then, on page 14, hand means
trick. Then, in the glossary, you are
instructed, A round and a trick get used
interchange- ably sometimes (emphasis added).
And this glossary entry instructs you further, Dont
let this get confusing!
The glossary entry adds, The whole game is over when one
team has won . . . 10 points.
You can call all of the games leading up to that, games as
well (emphasis added).
To add to the (interdicted) confusion over
round, the author terms the trump making process
go- ing around the table.
Double suited, according to this book, does not mean
having only two suits in your hand, but having two cards
in one suit. |
Then, there is spelling for renege, re-
neig; for bower, Bauer (granted,
Bauer is the German word from which the euchre
word bower derives.
But, Germans dont play euchre hence, bower).
Not that the instruction on euchre is all that clear:
An essay on an advantage in being double-suited
(i.e., having two cards in a suit, remember) indicates
not that you should throw one card from an Ace-high off suit
to signal partner, but that you should always throw off a
singleton even if you have no trump (which would,
worse than failing to sig- nal partner correctly, give him a false
signal).
And we are told that if a player on the team |
Euchre According to Wergin,
by Joseph Petrus Wergin
Huron Press, Madison, Wis., 1990, 137 pp., $9.95
Euchre According to Wergin contains good basic instruction,
and, unlike most books of Hoyle, recognizes the way most people
play the game. But
it is short on wit and intellect, and it makes a number of errors
and omissions.
The authors apparent certainty as to the origins of euchre
(invented in America, p. vii) and the term
euchre (pp. 1-2) is not shared by scholars.
See, e.g., Catherine Per- ry Hargrave, R. F.
Foster, Charles Goren and the Oxford English Dictionary.
Nor is the authors passion for honesty |
(pp. 6-7, 74-75, and 123) shared by vast
numbers of euchre players.
Overreaching and deception such as stealing the deal
are as much a part of the game in many circles as going alone.
Its a dog-eat-dog world out there in the heartland, and the
game goes to the alert as well as the swift.
In some passages the author contradicts himself.
For example:
At the top of page 25 he defines the bridge
as the dealing teams being at 6 or 7 points and the opposing
teams being at 8 or 9.
In the very next paragraph he defines it as a maneu- |
ver by the dealers opponents to protect
their position.
(Actually, the correct term for the maneuver is
ordering at the bridge. And the
bridge is simply a score of 9 points. If the player
to the dealers left is at the bridge, he must
order the dealer when the dealers team has 6 or 7 points to
protect his own teams position.
Thats ordering at the bridge
similar to the Columbus coup in Hoosier play.)
At page 28, the author says, If you take the first
trick in a suit and your partner discards, do not lead back the
suit he has shown . . . . Later on the very same page
he says, Ob- serve your partners discards . . . .
In many cases, that may be your best next lead . . . . |
And at page 51, If partner named the
trump and you [at third hand] have a high and a low trump,
chances are that the fourth player may not have a trump.
If a high card is not played, you may be embarrassed when the fourth
hand overtakes the play of a low trump.
(Anyway, the reasons to play high exist despite the un-
likelihood the dealer holds trump, not because of it.)
In other passages, the author is simply wrong:
At page 31: With a score of 9 to 8 in the
dealers favor, it is best for the dealer to at- tempt a hand a shade lighter
than normal. The opposite is true:
Better to let the oppo- |
nents score a point than to go out euchred.
It is when the score is 9 to 8 against the dealer that
the risk is worthwhile, as the author points out elsewhere.
At page 47, the author states that a dealers
turning down a right bower indicates a 62˝ per cent probability
that the left is in the third hand and a 37˝ per cent probability
that it is in the deck.
Actually, the probabilities are 38˝ per cent (5/13) in the second
hand, 38˝ per cent (5/13) in the third, and 23 per cent (3/13)
in the deck. The
probabilities are in the eldest hands favor not because of a
62˝ per cent probability his partner holds the left, but because
of a 61˝ per cent probability that the dealers
partner does not (third hands plus |
decks probabilities.
Given the second hands failure to assist, the
likely probability of the third hands holding the left is,
it is true, some- what higher than 38˝ per cent; but it is not
mathematically determinable, and certainly nowhere near 62˝ per
cent).
At page 49, the author suggests that trump- ing a partners
ace is often OK.
While it is occasionally OK (as it is in bridge and
spades, not just in euchre), this is very bad advice to a beginner; and
beginners may be the major market for a book of instruction.
Trumping a partners ace is one of the two errors most
common to beginners (the other is reneging with the left bower).
The best advice to beginners is, Never trump your |
partners ace, the very phrase criticized by the author.
Later, when they know the game, novices can learn the rare occasions
to trump a partners ace.
At page 83, the author suggests that players might wish
to play to only 7 points, using 4s and 3s for markers
as the euchre players did back in the 18th century.
Maybe the 19th and early 20th centuries (most Hoyle referen- ces
set the game at 5 points, not 7 or 10), but not the 18th.
There is no evidence of the game earlier than the 19th century.
Further, the authors legendary super player Freddie
Fox would not draw applause from real euchre players on
three of the six hands |
illustrated at pp. 54-62:
Hands Nos. 2 and 3 are but examples of simply correct play.
And the foxy play in Hand No. 6
appears so only because Mr. Fox made the wrong
dis- card when picking up.
The authors chapter on Euchre Odds and Percentages,
seemingly arcane, is but basic probability theory taught in
freshman math. Although its interesting, anyone needing the chart will get
lost in the shuffle.
Many of the authors suggested Official Rules are
likewise superfluous, for example:
III-1-a, Riffle the pack at least three times and
follow with several over and under shuf- |
fles. Be careful not
to expose the bottom card, is basic Hoyle, not just euchre,
and is more a matter of etiquette and good sense than rules.
Likewise, III-2, Pones Right to Shuffle;
IV-1, Number of Cards to be Cut, and IV- 3, Cut
Before Dealing, are rules of Hoyle, not just euchre.
Point penalties suggested in IV-3 b and c for refusing
to offer the cut and refusing to cut are ludicrous.
Has the author not heard of the Columbus cut?
VI-6, requiring the dealer to answer truth- |
fully an inquiry as to trump, and forbidding a
players asking what specific card was picked up, not only is
ridiculous, but toys with the First Amendment.
A better rule (of personal beha- vior, not of the game) is,
Pay attention, and beware of the liar!
In sum, the proposed rules are too arcane, too silly, and too many.
Omissions: Not included in Wergin (but included
in Natty Bumppos Columbus Book
of Euchre) are rules and suggestions for eu- chre
solitaire, two-handed euchre with wid- ows or
blinds for third and fourth hands, and three-handed
buck (bid) euchre.
top |
Euchre Strategies,
by Fred Benjamin
(publisher & city not disclosed), 2007, 90 pp., $15.07
Fred Benjamin tells us in the very first section of his book Euchre
Strategies that he wins two out of three games, on average, on Yahoo!
Any euchre player who tells you he wins two-thirds of his games is (a) lying,
or (b) cheating, or (c) selecting his com- petition very carefully.
I am acquainted with the author through e-mail and other interaction on line,
and I have no partic- ular reason to suspect him of lying or cheating.
He gives us answer (c):
" . . . I win so often in part because of my partner, . . . with whom I
play ap- proximately 30 per cent of my games.
Our play- ing pattern is simple:
Create a table and play with whomever sits with us." 1
If you have an established partner, and play most of your games against players who are not
regular partners, and if you know what youre doing, and |
play generally inferior competition, you prob- ably can
win two-thirds of your games The
inferior competition, in this case, is indicated by the Yahoo! ratings
the author discloses for five of six of his own nics 1740, 1587,
1545, 1753, 2467 and 1710.
Except for the 2467, the ratings are mediocre, by Yahoo! standards,
and indicate avoidance of advanced competition. 2
I would not mention such statistical puffing, which might seem otherwise
irrelevant, except for one thing:
This book is based largely on statistics and mathematical analysis, with the
help of a computer simulator the author has devised for the purpose (useable
also as an independent computer game or practice table, and available on
line). So, consider the
source; and remember what Mark Twain (an avid euchre player) said:
There are three kinds of lies:
Lies, damned lies, |
| and
statistics. 3
When this book was published, a person who has played the author on line
quite a bit exclaimed to me, How can he write a book on euchre?
He cant even play euchre."
That does not bother me. Leo
Duro- cher, Casey Stengel and Sparky Anderson all were better baseball managers
than players. What bothers me
is that the author of this book cannot write.
How do you follow someone
* who uses redundancies like initial opening lead,
first lead on next trick, and opening lead 2nd
thru 4th tricks?
* who uses malaprops like hole card for the card
turned up, and kitty for the stock or talon?
* who misspells led throughout the book? 4 |
* who needs eight lines of type to define high card?
The language distracts. If
you can figure out what a finesse is from the authors wordy
and convoluted definition and explanation, you under- stood the concept a lot
better to begin with than he does now.
Look at kitbitz [sic] and kitty in the defini- tions
section. Kitbitz may
be a typographical error instead of a misspelling of kibitz, since
it appears out of alphabetical order, where kibitz would be; but
its wrongly defined in any event.5
Kitty is defined as the three unseen cards re- maining in the deck
after the deal also called the talon, the book says.
Talon is correct (or you can say stock, or deck,
or pack) but not kitty.
A kitty, in games, is something of value (money, usually;
cf. poker).
Its the oppo- |
site of a
talon6 just as hole card is the oppo- site of a turned
card: Hole card, a term unique
to poker, indicates a card hidden from the view of other players.
Section 9.15 consists entirely of a table pur- porting to identify
% Probability of opponents has x trump.
I couldnt get past the syntax:
One opponents probability? (has)
Or boths? (opponents)
(And, whats the of for, follow- ed by a verb?)
In either event I found suspicious cells in the table.
Just to be sure, I ran it by a ma- thematician.
The table is botched. Not that
any- one needs such a table to begin with:
If you dont have the answer intuitively, you need to play more.
More confusion is created by diagrams that place the deal with East in a
north-south-east-west layout. Theres no law against giving
East the deal (and East |
will eventually get to deal in every card game, of course).
But conventionally, in diagrams, South has the deal and West has the lead.
We might be able to adjust to the authors giving the deal to East
instead of South, but then he gives us a diagram with North as the
dealer (the book puts you at South, as you would be in a computer game,
and rotates the deal).
Then there are the Duh! factors:
The first of seven listed occasions on which to lead trump on defense is,
You only have trump. (Duh!)
The first of six listed ways to identify a void in another players hand
is, If a player does not follow suit. (Duh!)
There is no history, no humor.
The only form of euchre presented or discussed in the book is the standard
American four-player partnership game |
no two-person, three-person, or bid euchre.
The section on rules is equally spare there is no mention of irregularities, such
as dealing out of turn, playing out of turn, or reneging. 7
The book contains good advice, by and large; but the presentation is
textbookish. Confused
yet? the author asks in section 8.1 (of 103 numbered sections and
subsections), on page 60 (of 90).
You should be, he answers.
Q.E.D. 8
The 17-page section 3, Opening Bid, reminds me of Thomas
Gallaghers point system in Winning at
Euchre. If you need
to remember Benjamins percentages (not all of them documented) or
Gallaghers points, youll be hand- cuffed trying to
play.
Benjamin gives generally good mathematical expla- nations of how and why
certain ploys and maneuvers work, but his instruction is for the
cognoscenti: Its |
not much help to a beginner or an intermediate play- er.
There are easier ways to learn:
Play cards, for instance.
Euchre should be fun; and reading about it should be, too.
This book may be the best endorse- ment yet of Euchre:
The Grandpa Lou Way.
And the mathematical analysis is not quite as relia- ble as it might appear.
The botched opponent(s)()(?) trump probability table was noted
above. For another example,
in section 3.6 the author attempts to demon- strate statistically that
ordering at the bridge is not such a good idea.
In his test of a good hand without a stopper, he compares the
results of 25 simulations of donation against the results of 25
other simulations of passing.
Thats not only not enough simulations for conclusive results; its
also simply bad science not to use the same deals to examine both ways of
playing, with such small samples.
He uses the same flawed dichotomy in a test of a bad hand that
does not take |
s. 8.4. (The author calls
this tactic soft dona-
tion.
Thats a term I had not encountered be-
fore, and its interesting.)
* Lead the king of hearts from jack-10 of clubs,
jack of spades and ace of diamonds when your
left-hand opponent has ordered the 10 of hearts
into his partners hand. s. 5.9
Most players would
lead the ace of diamonds or the jack of spades;
and I would have led the ace of diamonds until I
ran simulations (in the Euchre
Laboratory, not on
Benjamins simulator) supporting the trump lead
on defense here, indicating that a spade lead might
be second best, and suggesting that the diamond
lead might be the worst (the author did not cite
any simulations).
Some not so good:
* Lead away from a guarded left bower when the |
dealers partner has
ordered up. s. 5.5(2,3)
That might produce an occasional euchre, but it
could deprive you of a stopper. In
general the
book and the simulator lean too heavily on lead-
ing trump on defense.
The book advises you in
section 5.5(1) to lead trump through the maker
(i.e., dealers partner) if you hold right-ace.
That
would deprive you of an end play.
And the author
contradicts himself on this point:
In section 5.6.2
he says, Do not lead a trump . . . when attempt-
ing a euchre. 10
* Always open a defense against a loner with an ace
even if you have only one. s. 5.8
This defies an
almost universally accepted prohibition:
Do not
lead an ace against a loner if you have only one;
do lead an ace if you have two. The
author claims
to have run simulations to prove his point, and ar-
gues that the ace lead is necessary to keep from
getting squeezed on a doubleton. What he
has |
| General footnote:
Section numbers given above refer to a 90-page printing with the title Euchre
Strategies on the cover.
Some readers may have an earlier, 55-page printing, in smaller type, with
the title Euchre Challenge & Teacher on the cover.
There was a relocation of the original section 3 to section 8 between the
printings, and thus a number of the section references above will not relate
to the earlier printing (in most if not all cases, the reader can add
1.0 to section numbers that do not work except for those beginning
with 8, which must be read 3. . . .
1 Another part of the pattern, not
reported by the author but reported to me by one who knows him on line, is
that he and his partner do not play again with anyone who beats them.
So, play with whomever sits with us may be a bit of a stretch, too.
(The author meant whoever sits with us, of course, not
whomever. The case
of a relative pronoun is dictated by its use in a subordinate clause, if
any. The clause, not the
pronoun, is the object of the preposition.
Lest this observation seem petty, note additional observations of unclear
writing following.)
[back]
2 The author has confided to a mutual
acquaintance that he plays mostly, if not exclusively, in the intermediate
lounges. But he is skating on
thin ice. In a post
to the Euchre Science discussion group on Yahoo! a few weeks after
publication of his book, he said 75 per cent of Yahoo! players with
65 per cent or better winning records are cheaters.
Five of his own nic records published in his book show winning
percentages ranging from 65.9 to 76 per cent (its the 2467 nic
with the 65.9%).
[back]
3 Twain attributed this remark to
Benjamin Disraeli but a number of scholars believe Twain was lying
about that. No one has
found any other source for attributing the remark to Disraeli.
[back]
4 The past tense of
lead (lead pronounced led is a heavy metal).
[back]
5
. . . [T]he ability of a person to view more than one
hand during the play . . . .
This definition suggests that even a player can kibitz.
A kibitzer (its a Yiddish word) is a spectator who offers
unsolicited advice. And he or she may
be allowed to watch only one hand. (We can
probably lay some of the blame here on Yahoo!, which also seems not
to know what the word means; but even Yahoo! recognizes that kibitzers can
see only hands that allow being seen.)
[back]
6 Cards left over that can be claimed or are otherwise of use are usually
called a dummy or a widow, not a kitty.
But there is not even a dummy or widow in partnership euchre.
[back]
7 And the rules section has the deal passing to the right instead of to
the left. Thank God for
print on demand:
This can probably be corrected soon, and at not too great a cost.
[back]
8
Maybe thats why the author moved section 3 of the book to
section 8 in the second printing so that these remarks would appear
two-thirds of the way through the book, instead of on page 12.
[back]
9
Heres what a mathematician had to say (my brother, who has a Ph.D.
in mathematics and works in mathematics): | |
|
Dont trust anyone who uses simulation to get answers.
Simulation is very tricky business.
Youre trying to get answers by generating random numbers.
It takes not only thousands of repetitions but also keen statistical insight to reduce
the margin of error to a manageable amount.
(Everyone thinks he can simulate things these days, even engineers.)
It seems that he produced the table of probabilities of trump holdings in
opponents hands via simulation and accepted the answers without question.
All those numbers could have been computed in closed form using elementary probability
theory. Even when you have to get
numbers by simulation, you still have to do a mathematical estimation to check them
with.
It appears also that the author hasnt published any confidence intervals
on his simulation data. Any biologist
would be able to give you confidence intervals on his rat lab data, but amateurs
at simulation dont seem to see that this is required in simulation as well.
Most people think you just run the simulation a few hundred times and then average
the results. But to get confidence
intervals, so you can have some idea if your data is nonsense or not, you have to
collect the runs in batches, collecting variance data from each batch.
Its a sophisticated statistical process.
Simulation is for mathematically intractable problems to analyze the actual
play of the game, as opposed to the deal (which is almost always mathematically
tractable). In the play of the game,
each play is statistically dependent on the previous play or plays.
The number of possibilities grows exponentially with each play, so it becomes unsolvable
in closed form. Simulation is then the
only recourse. But simulation design
then becomes of the utmost importance and is only as good as your robots.
Exponential error might not be an insurmountable problem on the outcome of
the play of a single hand in a game as simple as euchre; but in trying to simulate
the probability of winning the game at a given score, with many hands yet to play,
hes being way too ambitious.
[back] | |
|
10 To be fair, the author presents that as a KISS rule
(Keep it simple, stupid), which may be meant for novices only
but, like so many other things in the book, that is not entirely
clear. [back]
top | |
Euchre for Dummies,
by Barry Rigal
Wiley Publishing Inc., Hoboken, N.J., 2004, 22 pp., $5.95
Games for Dummies.
Why does he refer to the card values of the 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2?
Why does he tell us we are playing with a 32-card deck, when the deck included with the
purchase includes only 24 plus sixes and fours of hearts and clubs for markers (that makes
only 28 even if you count the markers which, we would like to point out, are of the
wrong suits; see the Professors explanation).
Why does he instruct us to place the talon and the turned card in the middle of the table,
when even dummies know to place it to their left, as in all card games
in which the deal rotates, to signify whose deal it is next? |
Why does he say the jack of trump is often referred to as the right
bower (and the jack of the same color, other suit, often called the
left bower)? Has he never played
euchre?
And what are these constant references to bidding ?
You dont bid in euchre! You order,
assist, pick up, turn down, pass, or call!
Then there are the actual mistakes. Lets
put it this way: If this book is the only
instruction you will ever receive on euchre, you will play like a dummy.
top |
The Law and Practice of the Game of Euchre,
by a Professor
T. B. Peterson & Brothers, Philadelphia, 1862, 134 pp., out of print
If I had known how many good books had been written on euchre in the late 19th century,
and if they had still been in print, I might never have written The Columbus Book of
Euchre there would have been no great need of it.
I have recently, with the help of a collector of antique books, been privileged to see three
of these old euchre books; and they all contain excellent instruction, even for todays
game. The only significant differences between
the game today and the game as it was are that they played to only five points in the old days,
with a pack of 32 cards (as Hoyle manuals specify even to this day).
But the principles of good play are not significantly different.
There were some options in the old days that we no longer recognize such as
lapping (carrying excess points from one game to the next), jambone
(a super loner laid face up on the table, allowing an opponent to call the play, and scoring
eight points, not four, on a march), and jamboree (a perfect two-bower
ace-king-queen of trump |
hand, worth 16 points) but even then those options were rarely
played.
More striking are the parallels and the similarities.
Calling next in first chair was recommended even then (that was called
Dutching in the 19th century, but the term next also was in vogue),
as were ordering at the bridge, donation (but not so called),
crossing (calling a suit of the color opposite of that turned down, in second chair), sucking in
(but not so called that is, bagging a good hand at the deal to induce your left
hand opponent to call next), promoting a face card with a lower lead from the
same suit, playing second hand low and third hand high, leading trump on offense but not on
defense, and defending alone (for a four-point euchre). Some of the early
writers even recommended as I do calling next in first chair with
none of it in your hand on occasion.
This is a ploy only recently named the full Eddy (after Edmond Hoyle).
Equally striking, in the ancient literature, is the omission of |
some of the colloquial rules
we see today like that dumb Michigan rule requiring a player to have a trump before he
makes it, that not-so-dumb Canadian rule requiring the dealers partner to go alone if he
orders up, and that silly and unsophisticated option called stick the dealer.
There is no ancient history of such.
The earliest euchre book I have had the privilege of reading is The Law and Practice of
the Game of Euchre, which says, on the title page, that it is by a Professor.
The title on the cover is Euchre and Its Laws.
There is a later edition (1877), with ten additional pages, titled The Laws [sic;
plural, now] and Practice of the Game of Euchre to Which is Added the Rules for Playing Draw
Poker.
The Professor, we are almost sure, was one Charles Henry Wharton Meehan, head of
the law library of the Library of Congresss and son of the Librarian of Congress, John Silva
Meehan, who was an appointee and devotee of Andrew Jackson. |
Charles Meehan died in 1872, five years before publication of the second edition of the
Professors book. We are
guessing that his publisher or family or executor merely carried on.
As well they should have. The Professors
writing was superb. Here are some samples:
In playing the game on the Mississippi River, if the player who plays alone is euchred,
the steamer is stopped at the first landing and the unlucky player is put ashore.
In the State of Arkansas he is carried out to be hung to the first adjacent tree, without
benefit of clergy.
So if your hand . . . should happen to be as red as the saints days in a
Romish calendar, or as black as the concentrated essence of midnight, when the opposite colors
are trumps, pursue the even tenor of your play, with placid demeanor with columbine
innocence and serpentine wisdom and publish it not with impatient demonstrations, |
or vituperative
expressions against ill luck. That is,
dont complain about your cards.
It may hap, once in while, that you will find yourself associated with a partner who is
a novice in the philosophy and mysteries of our noble game; and when you begin to perceive
that he is one of those unfortunate individuals of neglected erudition, whose intense ignorance
of the play is disheartening displaying the most marvelous ingenuity in preventing you
from winning, and a cruelly tantalizing facility in helping your opponents to defeat you
smile, if you can. We always do.
Illuc Ionicus. That is, dont
complain about your partner, either!
The Professor was fond of quoting from Latin and French, and Shakespeare and Pope;
and that might throw off a number of todays readers.
And I take it back: The Columbus Book of
Euchre did need to be written but not for avoidance of Latin, or |
French, or Shakespeare or Pope.
It needed to be written because it was the first book ever written on euchre, including
numerous manuals of Hoyle, that recognized
that real people play euchre to ten points with a deck of 24 cards.
That is not to disparage the Professor one whit:
He wrote of the game as it was played in his time, and he did it well.
The Professors research satisfied him that the French had virtually nothing
to do with the origin of euchre, and that it was a German game (although he was puzzled about
the origin of the word euchre which was not adequately explained until 1990
and the publication of David Parletts Oxford Guide to Card Games, in which euchre
was traced to the early 19th century game of Jucker in the Germanic region of Alsace).
Some of the later euchre writers of the 19th century, including John Keller and the anonymous
author of Euchre: How to Play It, were |
|
seduced by notions of French origins; but recent research has shown them to have been
mistaken, and the Professor to have been right.
Incidentally, the Professor explained why diamonds and spades, not hearts and
clubs, are the suits traditionally selected for markers (deuces and trays, in the
old days, for a five-point game and the Professor called them
counters, not markers):
Because the pips of those two suits, being more sharp, are easily discerned.
It is interesting to note also that none of the 19th century writers of euchre texts ever
referred to Hoyle, except in speaking of whist.
Hoyle never played euchre. |
An earlier book Hoyles Games, published in Philadelphia in 1845 by Henry
F. Anners (the author was unidentified, unless it was the same as the publisher)
contained four pages on euchre, which was identified as a German game.
The game described was very much like the game we know today but for the usual archaisms, such
as playing to five points, with 32 cards.
Dealing in twos and threes was the way even way back then, and ordering at the bridge
was one of the ploys described. Going alone was
called cards away, as it was alternately in the Professors and
other books of the 19th century; but the principle was the same as now.
top |
Euchre: How to Play It
(anonymous)
Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh; London and Canberra, ca. 1886, 124 pp.,
Price One Shilling (but now out of print; it cost me 38 pounds in 2006)
Not only is the author of this book not identified, but also the copyright page is undated.
One of the introductory pages bears a dedication, To E. J. E., in
Remembrance of a Lone Hand, in London, 1886; and that could be an
indication of the date of publication.
This book copies liberally from the Professors book,
and maybe thats why the authors name is not revealed.
The 29-page chapter Hints to Tyros is lifted virtually verbatim, without a hint
of a credit to the Professor. Either
it is blatant plagiarism, or it is a case of the Professors executors, heirs
or publishers themselves extending their prior publication to the British Empire.
But the author takes issue with some of the Professors pronouncements:
For example, the Professor had suggested that the opponents should get four points
for euchring a lone hand; and the author of this book points out the folly of such a
proposition. |
And there is new material in this book: For
one thing, it introduces us to railroad euchre, which may be the first euchre
game played to ten points (but it was played with a 33-card pack, including a joker as
best bower), and to French euchre (a misnomer) and Napoleon,
both played with a 24-card pack.
And this book gives us our first glimpse of stealing the deal, in its presentation
of the rules: If a deal is made out of
turn, it is good, provided it be not discovered before the dealer has discarded, and the
eldest hand has led.
This book has a tedious eight-page description of progressive (tournament) euchre;
but that is offset with a delightful little euchre story, about a priggish parson
who is seduced by a comely widow with a card game.
Other features are a 91-entry Dictionary of Technical Terms (exceeding the
Professors by a dozen) and a comprehensive index. |
The Game of Euchre,
by John W. Keller
Frederick A. Stokes, New York, 1887, 82 pp., out of print