Dogs: Keep It Within The Team Or Give It To Opposition?

[otiluke711]

Even strong players disagree on when to keep dogs and when to give it away to the opposing team.

I thought I’d share this conversational exchange.

Me: According to (anonymous really strong player #1), “The dog is a really complex yet important card, it’s also important to give it to the opponents to stop their Tichu call or to weaken them and make them unable to lead.”

(I’d add dogs can in some cases make it more difficult to 1-2 but in other cases actually assist in 1-2)

Why always (or almost always) keep dog within the team? What makes you feel strongly about this?

Anonymous Really Strong Player #2:

You can't know whom you should give dogs before trading except a grand call at a score like 820

So you always risk making the wrong decision without any information given.

Me: That’s an interesting reason.

I thought you would say, they might be able to double with it, support a Tichu call that might have failed, or gain the critical lead needed to stop your team’s Tichu call.

I guess that’s what you mean by wrong decision…or giving it to the ‘wrong’ person on the opposing team. They could do all the stuff mentioned above or play a part in it…

I sometimes would also privately think keeping dogs within my own team subtly increases the chances that I give the other team bombs because I am inevitably giving them number cards.

(Keeping it within the team, if you have dogs and don’t think you can get the lead with your hand, give it to partner).

[cosdogg]

every hand is unique, as is every stragtegy in trading cards. If my option is to potentially give a singleton to an opponent, and I am a long shot to T or support a partners T, I'll give to opponent. If I have a single A, Dr, or Ph, and the dog, I am keeping the dog and giving good card to partner. There are unique situations that would lend taking the risk (it always is) of passing the dog to opponent.

If opp GT's, I always pass dog to that person.

[--Q--]

every hand is unique, as is every stragtegy in trading cards. If my option is to potentially give a singleton to an opponent, and I am a long shot to T or support a partners T, I'll give to opponent. If I have a single A, Dr, or Ph, and the dog, I am keeping the dog and giving good card to partner. There are unique situations that would lend taking the risk (it always is) of passing the dog to opponent.

If opp GT's, I always pass dog to that person.

do not follow this misleading advice

[Tuut Tuut tis Luut]

every hand is unique, as is every stragtegy in trading cards. If my option is to potentially give a singleton to an opponent, and I am a long shot to T or support a partners T, I'll give to opponent. If I have a single A, Dr, or Ph, and the dog, I am keeping the dog and giving good card to partner. There are unique situations that would lend taking the risk (it always is) of passing the dog to opponent.

If opp GT's, I always pass dog to that person.

do not follow this misleading advice

If it's misleading, and you disagree. Maybe expand on that to explain and support your stance.

[Tuut Tuut tis Luut]

I can't say I'm a very strong tichu player at all.
So I'll leave any specific strategy considerations to the experta. But here's my personal consideration from a more general game/statistical pov.

As with a lot of strategy in tichu, the main consideration here is Tichu calls. But barring GTs, you have no information about anyone's hand or likelyhood of calling Tichu.

If either you or your partner might tichu, passing the dog would be a mistake.

If the opponents have a possible tichu, it's a 50-50 chance to guess right to hurt it's Chances. Or guess wrong and help their tichu succeed instead.

So for every time you're dealt the dog in a weak hand. Passing to the opps gives a 1/3 chance it's the right decision. And a 2/3 that you would've been better off keeping it. (1/3 for your partner having a tichu hand, and 1/3 for choosing the wrong opp to pass to).

Add to that that the dog isn't the total tichu killer it might feel like being. Esp with a good partner, a dog isn't necessarily much worse than getting a singleton low card.

And even if you do pass to the opp with the strongest hand. That's only helpful if their tichu already.
If their hand is strong enough all you've done is significantly increase their chances to get a double win.


So seems to be relatively few hands where it's helpful. And crucially, no way to differentiate between when and to who you should or shouldn't.
Sounds like an overall terrible deal.

[otiluke711]

People often give dogs away to the opposing team if their hand is going to be K or less during the card exchange…

The risks in doing this:

1) Opponents holding DRPHAAAA in their hands use dogs to score 200, 300, and/or 400 points.

2) One person in the opposing team uses dogs to save their partner who is about to fail on their Tichu call. A Tichu call worth +100/+200 points which would have failed without the assistance of the dogs you gave them, succeeds instead.

3) You (or partner) called tichu (small Tichu or Grand) and your team gets into a position where the one person holding dogs on the opposing team has 14 cards and the other person on the opposing team has only 1 card. If your combinations are weak, the person holding dogs will neutralize it with their cards or just bomb it, then use dogs to let their partner go out first. Whereas, without existence of dogs, the person with 1 card might not have gone out at all.

4) Opposing player with 1 and the dogs you gave plays dog first. This leads to a situation where the other team goes out first before you do because they play combinations that your team can’t beat. Or, the extra lead provided, made it possible for them to leave before your team can.

If you give dogs to your partner, the risks are:

1) They can’t call Tichu when they could have.

2) In certain cases, they can’t score double victory for your team if they have only 1/2 high cards (DR/PH/A) + dogs out of the set which includes DRPHAAAA.

3) They can’t go out in the hand because their hand is also K or less.

4) They can’t go out in the hand because they have to use dogs to give you the lead after they’ve gained the lead.

The objective behind giving dogs to the opposition is to weaken their hand, make them fail a Tichu call, or discourage them from even making a Tichu call, plus reduce the chances of double victory. The other side benefit of giving dogs is you avoid creating a potential bomb. If your hand is very weak (K or less with no bombs), many of these objectives might not work out.

[Paumenn]

Keep >90% of cases, give <10% of cases.
i.e. I only give if there's a very specific reason to not keep.

[Bastian_Feuerstein]

I think the dog is an inshurance for Tichus there are some Tichus that only work if the partner can bring you in one time or if im getting bomb i need a partner to help me.

[charliec247]

For me, if one member of the opposition is clearly better than the other (think expert-beginner/average pairings), then the better player is almost always getting passed the Dog.

If the opposing team called GT, whoever did it is automatically getting the Dog.

These are the only two scenarios I can think of in my experience playing the game; and no I don't claim to be very good at it - just sharing my experience.

[threeBarrelJr]

The dog goes to opponent on GT.

Baring that, it is a team asset that must stay in our team. The goal of partner pass is to concentrate power in the stronger hand and get the dog to the weaker hand.

If I think I have the strong hand, partner gets the dog to support me.
If I think I have the weak hand, I keep dog.

Worst case, we both think we have the strong hand, now my partner gets dog and knows we are both strong so we are setting up for 1-2 tichu.


Little Salty right now because a 100 elo partner threw game because I passed him the dog. The dog was perfect because I barely my tichu. The dog in his hand helped. But... apparently I was trolling him by passing bad cards....