Crew Game Snapshot

Legal Options:

5

6

Our only task is to win the trick containing GREEN 5. With two tricks left and only GREEN 5 and GREEN 6 in hand, the safest cooperative line is to lead GREEN 5 now. Known greens out: 1,2,3,8,9; unknown: 4 and 7. If we lead GREEN 6, the holder of GREEN 7 may be forced to win the trick, taking the lead into the final trick and making it very hard or impossible for us to win GREEN 5. If instead we lead GREEN 5, any teammate holding higher greens can and should duck (play GREEN 4 if they have it, or any off-suit without trump) so we win the task immediately. The only failure case is if someone’s only green is the 7 (or they trump with ROCKET 3), which would likely cause failure regardless if we led GREEN 6. Therefore, lead GREEN 5 to complete the task now while we have control.

Played:

5

Legal Options:

7

Only one option available

Played:

7

Legal Options:

8

9

Gamma led the task card GREEN 5, but Delta has already overled it with GREEN 7. Since Gamma has already played and cannot add a rocket, the only way for Gamma to win would be if Gamma held a higher rocket to play—impossible. Any rocket now would be from Beta and would win the trick for Beta, still failing the task. Thus, the task cannot be saved on this trick. My best move is to minimize impact and preserve flexibility for the final trick by sloughing my lower BLUE to retain BLUE 9 as a potential winner later.

Played:

8

Legal Options:

3

4

Gamma led GREEN 5 (the task card), Delta overcalled with GREEN 7, and Alpha showed void in GREEN by discarding BLUE 8. I’m last to act and have no ROCKETS and no GREEN, so I cannot change the winner; Delta will take this trick, so the task will unfortunately fail regardless of which YELLOW I discard. The only optimization left is which YELLOW to shed. Since I hold the last two YELLOWs (3 and 4), either will be a safe discard. Keeping the lower card preserves slightly more flexibility for the final trick (e.g., if YELLOW is led I’ll still win, but in general keeping the smallest is standard). Therefore, discard YELLOW 4 now and keep YELLOW 3.

Played:

4