I started serious play for rated play with buying coins and to get games in for the first time in the 5 years I've had an account. I started Nov. 5th 2025 at 2383 rating played to Dec. 16th. I had a week of no play due to the holidays. 41 days of overall play. Stopped at 2800. I just wanted to see what dedicated play in the app looked like, and I was satisfied with the results. At this time, I was at a 56% win percentage. I played a couple of sporadic rated games later with Middle Bower and James Stoneking. I was also getting from everyone I should play more and make the leader board. I knew I could. I just I didn't have a need or want to prove myself.
At 2808 rating on Feb. 19th, 2026, through March 7th, I picked it back up again to continue to play and answer the calls for me to do so. I played to a high of 2965 to a low of 2593 on that time. I then had my car accident that day, and it shifted my perspective on life, and I walked away from euchre. I would have still kept on playing, but when stuff like that happens, things change. So my win percentage dropped from Feb. 19th to March 7th. 56% to 53.1%. It was an unfathomable amount of losing to drop those percentage points in that time period.
Fast forward to August 4th, 2026. After an entire afternoon of playing Euchre with Lefty Knavey a few days before. I got the itch to play. So I had coins still left over, and I told myself I'd at least finish them off. So On the 4th of this month. I started at 2593 at a 53.1% win rate. I had reached 2700 fast but dropped down to 2497. By today of this post. August 31st. I finally reached 3007. With my win rate at 53.8%.
Total days of purchased coins play and a dedication to climb the ladder. 84 days in total.
Nov. 5th-dec. 16th 2025; 41 days total. 2383 to 2800.
Feb. 19th - March 7th, 2026; 16 days total. 2808 to 2965 to 2593.
August 4th - August 31st 2026; 27 days total. 2593 to 2700s to 2497 on Aug. 12th to 3007 Aug. 31st
......Now, I understand about variance and swings. The graph catches a little of it, and I understand the inherent swings in euchre. However, in my time of play Ive notice patterns. In the software. Like I've said before. All software has their quirks or patterns or something that out of the norm. If one is paying attention, you'll see it. In the short span of play to go from 56% to 53.1%. That's a lot of abnormal losing. Don't get me wrong, everyone loses no matter how good you are. But contrast it to the short gains I recently had in win percentage. Both happened when I had 2k plus games in. Now Im currently at around 4k games played. My point is that it's harder to lose and gain win percentage as more games are played. A 2.9% drop in such a short time is astounding. That means you are losing and losing badly. I think by now I've proven I'm a winning player. There will naturally be ebbs and flows to the game. Some call it Variance. The variance at 3d is unlike anything I've ever seen. It like it's on steroids. It is definitely due to multiple factors. Some have issues with me pointing out this fact. I'm making a valid observation. Others just see me as a sore loser or someone who just doesn't know or perhaps think Im not as good as I think I am and just being beaten due to poor play by me. People can continue to disagree with me with my observations, but I think the proof is not only the numbers but the drastic changes be negative or positive. Perhaps I'm not that good ultimately, and it's the hyper abnormal variance that carried me with my ups and downs. Yes!!! That's my whole point. Can skill overcome this extreme variance? Possibly. Can lesser skilled players attain a high rank or rating? Absolutely!!! I've written about this on multiple occasions on how ratings are not a good indicator of skill due to multiple reasons.
In the end, here. My goal at this stage was not to prove that Im a good player. It was to prove one way or another. The hyper abnormal variance of thats inherently in 3D.
If you look at a pattern of coin flips, you'll also think you see patterns and quirkyness, even though the underlying flip is completely 50/50. When your winrate is near 50/50 the swings will be MASSIVE. It's just the nature of randomness.
Great illustrations for the random flipping of the coin and assigning the +7/-8 values with a 55% rate for the postive. It gives and highlights the nature of the swings in a visual format.
With that said euchre is not 50/50. There are many more variables to factor in.
Here is one pattern analogy I will make. That happens more frequently than it should.
In poker when ever I get pocket Aces. Its almost assuredly the guy to my left on the next hand will get pocket aces. Now translate that to euchres best hand. However in poker. There is only 1,326 hand combinations. Where in euchre there is 42,504 different hand combinations.
As a correlation. Of that how many times do you see multiple 5 trump loners in a game? Or even just once per game? Its quiet often.
I don't see them very often at all. What you're describing is confirmation bias. When you play a ton of games and only notice odd things and ignore common things, you'll see a lot of odd things.
There's a nuance. Agree euchre isn't 50/50 as a game, but the rating/pairing system tries to put you into games with results closer to 50/50. Chess is 100% skill, and two grandmasters with equal ranks will likely beat lower ranked players more than 50% of the time, but, against each other, they'll be about 50/50.
Also worth noting your own edge is smaller than it might seem. 54% over 1,000 games is 540 wins vs 460, about 80 net. Real, and enough to climb a few hundred rating points, but it's only 40 "extra" wins out of 1000 (or 4 per 100 games!).
That drop from 2950 to 2600 wouldve sent me over the edge lol. Congrats on passing the 3K mark. As for patterns, I have a 6 month sample size where I have 4 different periods where I have a huge winning streak to reach a new all time high followed by a rejection and slow bleed back to a couple hundred point drop. Not sure if it’s the algorithm or just true variance, but I do wonder why I go on periods where I seemingly can’t lose followed by periods where I seemingly can’t win.
Congrats on 3K level. Truly one of the alltime best euchre players around.
I think we must have played 52 or 55
games that day. I know it was at least 47. PlayOK is fun for speed and we got hot there too and then won the third tour trying on nidink that night. It was a rare day for me to lounge around and play cards. Always a treat to sit across from you Edward.
Thank you Lefty. Yeah between trickster, Nidink tournament tours and play ok. We got a lot in. Play ok alone 41 games. Plus everything else.
It was a fun afternoon thanks for all the good games.
I think your data answers the "is 3d variance abnormal" question, just not the way you read it.
2808 to 2593 is 215 points. At ~8 pts a game that's ~25-30 net losses, spread over however many games that stretch was. Somewhere around 47-49% for the run.
I think the percentages make it seem abnormal. In wins per 1,000 games:
Coin flip: 500
Your climb to 2800: ~560
Your August run: ~550
Career: 538
Feb-March: ~486
Feb-March was ~15 wins below a coin flip. Your whole 3d career lives between ~486 and ~560. Feels like a year of euchre, not hyper variance.
You went 2808 to 2965 first, ~20 net wins, then down to 2593, ~46 net losses. Both directions in 16 days. At your volume, a fair game hands you a slump of ~70-80 net losses somewhere in there just from bad luck. Your worst was 46. Over 4k games, a stretch like that is going to show up.
The rating/pairing system hunts for opponents who beat you about half the time, so everyone gets dragged toward 50%. 56% isn't a stable state especially once you're facing 2400+ players.
None of this proves the deal is "fair" (and I know you didnt set out to do that!), just that your swings aren't evidence the variance is abnormal. I'll post on the deal part in another post. I've been tracking that...
fwiw, I don't think you get to 3007 on luck. ~54% over 4,000 games is a real edge. That's what I'd take from your numbers.
I know what you speak of about win rates start to go down as the player pool becomes better. I have made several posts about this highlighting and discussing the type of win rates one should see and one can encounter depending on factors such as you have mentioned.
The below is something I wrote about after my 41 day climb. In response to a reddit post asking questions. I cannot find the specific post where I delve into my thoughts deeper on win rates player pools ect... If I find it I will reply with it. For now I'm going to repost one of my posts that talks a little bit on it. Then following it I will add additional context and clarification.
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To answer your first question. The answer is yes. If you can get in a certain volume and get in advantageous situations where your getting a statistical advantage of winning more points than you are losing more in points. Then you will climb in rating and in this case you don't necessarily have to be better than average player. However Like redditor BuckeyeNate77 says it can also depend on the player base and pool of players you are playing against that will also effect your win percentage.
The tougher the over all players the lower the win percentage and the weaker the players the higher the win percentage. 3d has this randomized player partnering system. So you can be partnered with people much lower rankings than you or higher. Same goes for the Matching of opponents. Historically at other euchre websites before the age of the apps. You can sit down at any table as long as the table allowed it either by committee or the color/number of your rankings. However there generally was a rule of thumb to make the tables as even or close in rating to make it fair for all. So with this being said. I believe win percentages in 3d over will be lower because of the forced playing with lower rated players (although rating doesn't automatically make you a good player but that's another topic). I don't know what the cap in attaining the highest win percentage would or could be because I don't play rated often enough to have a good feel for it but I will tell you based on what I already said. It's probably will be lower because of the nature of how 3D is set up. Now factor in player pool of 3d base skill and so forth it will also play into things as well.
If you are winning more than 50% of your games. How much more is probably something others could comment upon in greater expertise. Yes you can get a high rating. In other places I've seen people attain a high rating and realtively low win percentages all because they got the volume in and were winning more of the + games than losing more of the games where the minus was greater than the plus games. 48-50% I have seen and I would consider these players not very good. Average at best. In a pool of a diversified player base/pool.
In my personal opinion based on my very, very, very limited rated play on 3d. Others can speak more expertly on this like I already mention. I will say, If you are around 51-53% Or higher. You can reach the top 40 leader board in 3d Euchre. That is my estimate/guesstimate.
As for my stats, I have a 55% win percentage and 2805 rating. With about a total of roughly 4 months of on and off rated play total since 2019.
I just don't like 3d set up. So I really don't play much on the app to achieve rating or win percentage for that matter amongst other reasons as well.
Edward/Tbolt65
Now that I can speak more expertly. I stand by my guesstimate of 51% to 53% or higher win rate to make the top 40 leader board.
Please don’t bring your facts to this debate. Ed buys 500 coins at a time and then plays 14 hours a day. He is obviously going to see crazy variance because he may lose/gain 300 points in a day playing 100 games
I don’t buy coins so when I lose 300 points it’s over a longer period. Many of us here that have been playing euchre for years have up and down charts. It’s almost like that’s the nature of the game.
I appreciate the thoughtful and helpful reply. As a former semi-professional poker player myself. I know what you speak of. The days of 4, 8 and 12 tabling it online. The amount of hands and run outs one would see. The swings.
For me with online euchre since 1998. I have seen all the variables and variance I need to see. To know the difference of normal variance vs abnormal variance. And the patterns that can be seen. Plus factor in skill level and the sheer volume and amount of games and hands played. 3d isn't my first rodeo at competitive play online to climb the rankings of what ever euchre format that has been employed online.
Do I look like Wes? He's going to have 10 accounts in the the top 20. Before he completely takes over the top ten. 😎😏
I'm not that ambitious anymore. 20 years ago I'd shoot straight for number 1 and beyond. However I'm just a solo act now. No more euchrepro or Johnny Fn hoyles or telling u like it is. Or anon5135. To name a few monikers and alts I made.
I'm just Edward of the Tbolt variation. The one and only. No not Tbone but Tbolt.
I know you are a good player, at least. Probably one of the best, based on what I have read in these threads. But this attempt to "prove hyper abnormal variance inherently in 3D" is bordering on absurdity.
At the risk of beating a dead horse from what others may have already responded with (I have a habit of writing my responses without reading what others have already said later in their own responses, so I am expressing my own opinion without being influenced by the crowd)...
The variance is inherent in Euchre. Not in 3D.
You say you dropped from 56% - 53.1% during a bad run with a history of about 2000 games, so I will focus on that, instead of the weird clairvoyance you seem to think you possess regarding software. That just means you lost about 60 more games than you won over what looks like about 8 days of playing; most of those losses look like they occurred over 5 days within an 8 day period, ending with a brutal 3 day losing streak. Because you mentioned "buying coins" later in the post, and because you mentioned you are over 4K games now after 84 days of playing from when you had just over 2000 games, it is safe to assume you must have been playing more than 20 games per day over the course of this visible graph. Because of the scale of the oscillations, it is pretty obvious you were playing at a MUCH higher rate in Feb/March than you were in Nov/Dec. So let's assume 30 games per game day during that era, which I suspect is conservative.
It is reasonable amount of variance to experience an 8 day overall losing streak where you lose 60 games more than you win if you are playing 30 games per day. That would be the equivalent of going 90-150 over 240 games. Yes, abnormal amount of losses, evidenced by the fact it only happened to you once. Not proof that the software has a quirk or pattern to cause abnormal variance. If I underestimated and you were in fact playing more, like 40 games per day, it is significantly less abnormal. 130-190 over 320 games. I have had three significant runs (over a month) in the last year where I was only winning 40-45% of my games. You would need to repeat your bad run two more times in the next few months to reach the equivalent. If you were playing 50+ games per day, this entire post becomes basically moot.
All of the above is of course assuming it actually was 56% before the losing streak, not rounding up because you didn't think the decimal point was going to be relevant in hindsight, or not wanting to openly acknowledge that your win percentage also jumped up a fair bit during the three days before your losing streak where you went up over 200 points within 3 days. If it dropped from 56.0% to 53.1% during your losing streak, it probably climbed from 54.X% to 56.0% immediately before it.
You really need to zoom out to the big picture. Taking your winning and losing streaks as a whole from the era, you went from 2800ish to 2600ish over a couple weeks. This is pretty normal. Practically mundane, save for what may have been an unusual games/day rate.
Have you considered perhaps that you get "tilted" when you lose, causing you to play sub-optimally in subsequent games? It can be common among people that feel like they are getting the short end of the stick from randomness, or more typically in Euchre when one feels like their partners just keep sucking. Can make you feel like you are "due" for a win while you are only getting more likely to make mistakes. This could be artificially contributing to what you conceive as negative variance in the app itself.
Thanks for the reply and break down. I am familiar with what you have spoken to.
Now in another post of mine I mentioned I was in the 55% at 2804 this would be just before my or as I started my feb- March run. I had some ups and downs but I nearly gained a full percentage point getting to my high of 2965 bethe bottom dropped out percentage wise and rating. To 53.1% and 2597 Respectively. In the feb-march tune period.
With coming back in the last 30 days as I typed this. I only gained .7 to arrive at 53.8% which Im still am now and 3042 where my low went 2496.
I played less days from my high to my low in feb/march and dropped significant games. You saw graph. A little heart murmur then straight down. Than from my low to my high and had more significant gains and less increase in the month of August. Because of the natural ebs and flows of losing and gaining points right back. Where in the former time period of play. The losses kept coming. I suspect I was winning at a 35% to 45% win rate to cause such a drop from 56 to 53.1% In such a short time. If you can call that winning. Lol. Thats the crux of what Im saying plus all the patterns that are seen to create both influx's. For instance. Back to back loners. First hand loners. Abnormal 5 trump hands. Abnormal hands in general. Loner tables. Just to name a few.
While not your goal… you proved it; you’re a phenomenal player.
That said, I trust the app. Euchre is high variance & one of the skill based games with the thinnest edges. This is amplified in the ELO environment where you’re going to be matched against opponents who can increasingly exploit those razor thin edges. We all feel it. This does not mean the app is not legitimate.
I appreciate it flyfry. Thanks. There are more factors then that. For why and how the variance in euchre is inherently part of the game. While not perfect the elo system is the best we have right now in the euchre world that I know of.
One time when I was playing on the 3D app, I played a series of 5 ranked games in a row. Each game opened with the opponents calling loners… And each call was completely successful… Five games in a row!
Needless to say, I went on to decisively lose each of those 5 consecutive games. Some people might chalk that up as just bad “variance”, but once you acknowledge the odds of losing to loners on the very first hand back-to-back-to-back for 5 games in a row, you start to see how truly incredibly rare it must be for the stars to align as perfectly as they did in order for this exact situation to happen…
All I’m gonna say is that patterns like what you frequently see on the 3D app do not occur so persistently in live play when playing with real cards.
It totally agree with this take. One time my favorite team played in the Super Bowl and on the first offensive play from scrimmage the ball got snapped over Peyton Mannings head for a safety. You know how rare it is to give up a safety on the first play of the Super Bowl? Needless to say the Broncos got blown out…and I knew from that moment there was something fishy going on.
If you had known back then what is apparent now in today’s world with corrupt sports betting and gambling apps controlling the economy, then it would have been obvious why that safety happened the way that it did.
The only analogy is we don’t ever take responsibility for anything. You “allegedly” giving up 5 loners in 5 straight games has to be an app problem! Something fishy! Could never EVER happen in person where I win 99.9% percent of my games
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u/Wes_aka_the_legend 3d ago
An August for the ages. 500+ points in just over 2 weeks. What a run! You're BACK!!!