Ketchup and Mayo win the Euchre

Well, I'm glad I dragged Mat to the euchre tournament tonight, cause we won! We played six games; three for seeding and three for the single elimination brackets. There were eight teams altogether, which is a REALLY good turnout for the club, and worked out really well numbers-wise.

Our first game was against Quinn and Molly. We got euchred on the first hand, but it was a really good game. They beat us 10-9, no big hands to speak of. Next, we played against Sonja (*heart*) and Cathy. My memory fails me, but I remember the winning hand. I was third seat, and Cathy served herself up a King of hearts. I held both the red jacks, with something like 9c, 10c, and Js. I figured it was better for me to pass since I had a better hand for euchering. Cathy picked it up, which made me very happy. I think the first trick was a clubs trick, which Sonja (to my right) won. She led Qd. I realized it was probably in my better interest to not waste my bowers unnecessarily, so I threw off my 9c, which also gave me a psychological edge in that they thought I had no trump. Cathy played the Ace smugly, and Mat trumped with Qh, at which point I threw down my bowers and laughed maniacally. That gave us the euchre for the win, I think 10-8.

We had to wait a while for some games to finish, so we played a few hands of Hearts. I made my usual "heart-breaker" joke; it was received with mixed reviews.

Next we played against Shu and Owen, who really aren't that strong of players in my opinion. One of my first hands was a lone hand which I made, and a few hands later I had the top four with an offsuit 9 (which they unfortunately led). The game wasn't too remarkable. It got to 7-7, and I got another lone hand with the top three, an ace, and a king. I took all five tricks for the win, and a number 4 seeding.


The first game that mattered was against two non-regular members. I decided to turn up the heat by making an aggressive call, but got set for it. They called a hand and made it, then called another and got 5 tricks to put us at 5-0. At this point, I figure the tournament was all but over for us. Luckily, I got a lone hand to make it 5-4. Some stuff happened, and I found us behind at 9-6. I got dealt the bottom three and the right in hearts, along with a nine of clubs. I decided it was little risk in playing alone. I lead the right and saw a king out of one's hand, and black out of the others. As I played out the rest, I watched for clubs, and indeed I saw plenty fall. On my last trump, I saw the ace of clubs come out, and I was happy to see that everyone kept a high spade. 8 out of the 10 points from this game were in alone hands. I feel like the other team outplayed us, but the cards were destined to land in our favour that round.

The next round, we found ourselves against Shu and Owen again, who found a bit of luck. My partner, Mat, was able to win an alone hand to get us up the ranks quickly. The score was 9-5 when Shu called spades. I held the right, but was four suited. Mat was able to trump the first trick, and his ace won another trick. Instead of laying down the right bower, I saved it in my hand until the very last trick, when the other team was certain the right was buried. I laid it down and laughed maniacally again.

I was hoping to see Sonja and Cathy in the final, but they had a very bad string of luck against Nguyen and Matt. Apparently Nguyen had kept calling hands which he was very weak in, but his partner had very good cards for it (once he ordered the ace up to Sonja when his partner had both bowers). The match against them wasn't too difficult. We were able to set them and make a few hands with all five tricks for a pretty well earned victory.

The prize? The two grungiest decks of cards the club had in its possession. A prize well earned, indeed.

(Sorry for the excruciating detail for those of you not interested in Euchre, but I know one guy who'd like to hear about the details I can remember.)

Listening to... Metallica - Bleeding Me
Link of the moment... Bowling date on Thursday, movie date on Saturday