Euchre
The partnership trick game with a 24-card deck, two chances to name trump, and jacks that outrank aces. The four-player rules as most North American tables play them, how other tables differ, and a score keeper for tonight.
What you need
Four players in two partnerships, partners facing each other, and a euchre deck: 24 cards, the nine, ten, jack, queen, king and ace of each suit. Take them out of a standard deck and set the rest aside. A hand is five tricks, and the team that names trump needs three of them. You play hand after hand, and the first team to 10 points wins.
Most tables keep score with two of the spare cards. A six and a four, two fives, or a two and a three laid across each other show a team's points by the pips left uncovered. Pencil and paper work too, and so does the keeper at the bottom of this page.
The deal
Pick the first dealer however you like. A common way is to deal cards face up around the table until a black jack lands on someone. After that the deal passes to the left. The dealer shuffles, and the player on the right cuts, or knocks the pack to say deal it as it lies.
Each player gets five cards in two rounds. The dealer goes around the table twice, giving each player two cards and then three, or three and then two, in any order, so long as everyone ends with five. The dealer then turns the next card face up on top of the pack. That is the up-card, and its suit is the first candidate for trump. The three cards under it stay face down and out of play, and nobody looks at them.
Making trump
Trump is settled in two rounds of talking, and it ends the moment someone takes it. The team that takes it are the makers, and they are promising to win at least three of the five tricks. The other team are the defenders.
Round one is about the up-card. Starting at the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player either passes or accepts the up-card's suit as trump.
- The player to the dealer's left passes or orders it up.
- The dealer's partner passes or orders it up, and then plays the hand with the dealer like anyone else.
- The player to the dealer's right passes or orders it up.
- The dealer picks it up or turns it down. Picking it up makes the up-card's suit trump.
Ordering it up hands the dealer a trump, so you do it on a hand strong enough in that suit to beat the dealer anyway. Whenever the up-card is ordered up or picked up, the dealer takes it into hand and discards one card face down. The dealer ends the round with five cards and a known trump in hand, which is the dealer's reward for the seat.
Round two happens only if all four pass. The dealer turns the up-card face down, and now, starting again at the dealer's left, each player either passes or names any suit except the one that was turned down. The first player to name a suit makes it trump, and that player's team are the makers. If all four pass again, the hand is thrown in and the deal moves to the left. Many tables play stick the dealer instead, which is covered below.
Naming the other suit of the same color as the turned-down card is called going next. The jack of the turned-down suit becomes the left bower of the new trump, which is the appeal.
Going alone
Once trump is made and before the first card is led, a player on the makers' side may announce that they are going alone. Their partner lays their cards face down and sits the hand out, and the lone hand plays the five tricks against both defenders. The reward is a doubled march: all five tricks alone score 4 instead of 2. Three or four tricks alone still score 1, and a lone hand that takes fewer than three is euchred like any other.
When someone plays alone, the player to the lone hand's left leads to the first trick. On this page a player who passed earlier in the round may still go alone once their partner makes trump. Some tables bar that, and the table below says so.
The bowers and the trump suit
The jacks are what make euchre euchre. In the trump suit, the jack of trump is the right bower and the highest card in the deck. The other jack of the same color is the left bower, and it ranks second, above the ace of trump. For every purpose in the hand, the left bower is a trump and not a card of its printed suit. If hearts are trump, the jack of diamonds is a heart: it can be played on a heart lead, and if it is led, everyone must follow with hearts.
So the trump suit has seven cards and the suit of the same color has five, with no jack at all. The two suits of the other color keep their six cards and their ordinary order.
| Suit | Order | Cards |
|---|---|---|
| Trump | Right bower (the jack of trump), left bower (the other jack of that color), ace, king, queen, ten, nine | 7 |
| The same color as trump | Ace, king, queen, ten, nine | 5 |
| The other color | Ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine | 6 each |
The word bower comes from the German Bauer, a farmer, which is also a German word for the jack. Both bowers and the ace of trump in one hand are the three highest cards in the game.
Tricks
With all four playing, the player to the dealer's left leads any card. Play goes clockwise.
- Follow suit if you can. The left bower counts as trump, never as its printed suit.
- With no card of the suit led, play anything: a trump to win the trick, or a throwaway from another suit.
- The highest trump in the trick wins it. With no trump played, the highest card of the suit led wins.
The winner of each trick leads to the next, until all five are played. A trick is four cards with everyone in, and three when someone is alone. Then count the tricks each team won. The score depends on that count and on who made trump, nothing else. There is no duty to trump and no duty to beat the card that is winning. Euchre asks only that you follow suit.
Between hands: shuffling 24 cards
24 cards, one load.
A euchre deck is the nines through aces of a poker-size pack, 24 cards, so it goes into Lotus as one load. The 28- and 32-card packs some tables use are one load too: Lotus holds up to two standard decks, 104 cards, at a time.
A finished hand goes back into the pack as five tricks, four cards at a time and most of them one suit, so a small deck comes back more clumped than its size suggests. Drop the pack in, touch the sensor, and a pass takes about five seconds. Three passes suit a home game, and about seven reach near-random.
Card sizes and finishes are covered in what cards work with a card shuffler.
How to use Lotus for Euchre
Euchre hands are short, so the deck comes back to the dealer often. The 24 cards go through a Lotus card shuffler as one load, and the dealer starts it with one touch.
| At the table | With Lotus |
|---|---|
| The pack | 24 cards, the nine through ace of each suit. The rest of the deck stays out, apart from the cards used to keep score. |
| Loads | One. The 28- and 32-card packs some tables use are one load too. Lotus holds up to two standard decks, 104 cards, loaded together. |
| Who shuffles | The dealer. One touch on the sensor on top starts each pass. No buttons, nothing to grip. Then the player on the dealer's right cuts or knocks, as usual. |
| When | Between hands, once the points are marked. |
| Passes | Drop the squared pack into the center tray and touch the sensor. Lotus deals the cards into two piles. Stack one pile on the other, and that is one pass. A pass takes about five seconds. About three passes suit a home game. About seven bring a 52-card deck to near-random, the figure from Bayer and Diaconis (1992). The euchre deck is smaller than that. |
| The discard pile | Euchre has none. Gather the five tricks and every card that sat out of the hand, face down, into one pack. |
| Two decks | With a second euchre deck on the table, the dealer's partner runs the idle deck through Lotus while the hand is played, and a shuffled deck is waiting when the fifth trick falls. |
| The deal moves | To the left after each hand. Lotus runs on a 9V battery with no cord, so it slides along to the next dealer. |
More trick-taking games: Spades, Pinochle and Bridge. Also in the family: 500 and Pitch. Every game is in the game table.
Scoring
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| The makers take 3 or 4 tricks | 1 to the makers |
| The makers take all 5, a march | 2 to the makers |
| A lone maker takes all 5 | 4 to the makers |
| A lone maker takes 3 or 4 | 1 to the makers |
| The makers take 2 or fewer, a euchre | 2 to the defenders |
| Game | 10 |
Only one team scores on any hand. The makers score for making it, or the defenders score for stopping them. The two-point euchre is what keeps round one careful: ordering up on a weak hand gives the defenders the same two points a march would have earned you. A hand where nobody makes trump is thrown in, and nobody scores.
The first team to 10 wins. At one or two points a hand, that is usually six to ten hands. The pips on two spare cards keep up with that pace, and so does the keeper below.
A worked game. Call the teams Us and Them. On the first hand Us order up hearts and take all five tricks, a march, for 2. On the second hand Them name spades in round two and take only two tricks. Us took the other three, so Them are euchred and Us score 2, for 4 to 0. On the third hand the dealer on Us picks up diamonds and goes alone. The lone hand takes all five, worth 4, and Us lead 8 to 0.
Them order up clubs on the fourth hand and take four tricks for 1. Us make trump on the fifth and take three for 1, so it stands 9 to 1. On the sixth hand Us order up hearts and march again for 2, and the game ends 11 to 1. A team can pass 10 by a point or two; the first team at or past 10 at the end of a hand wins.
How other tables play
Euchre is a regional game, and the rooms in the Midwest, Nova Scotia, Cornwall and New Zealand each think theirs is the real one. Settle these before the first deal.
| Rule | This page | Other tables play |
|---|---|---|
| Game | 10 points | 11 in Britain, 15 at some tables, 21 in the St Austell league |
| The dealer's partner in round one | Orders it up and plays with the dealer | Must play alone if ordering it up (Canada, England, Australia) |
| Everyone passes twice | The hand is thrown in | Stick the dealer: the dealer must name a suit |
| Going alone | The makers only | A defender may go alone too and scores 4 for a euchre. Some allow it only against a lone maker |
| A player who passed | May still go alone | May not go alone |
| The dealer picking up | Always allowed | Only with a trump already in hand, and the left bower does not count |
| A euchre with no tricks at all | 2 | Super-euchre: 4 |
| A card for the lone hand | None | Railroading: the partner passes one card face down, and the lone hand keeps it or discards it before looking |
| The deal | In twos and threes | One card at a time (common in Canada) |
| The cut | The player on the dealer's right cuts or knocks | No cut (usual in Canada) |
British, 32-card, three players, two players
| Game | Pack and deal | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| British euchre | 25 cards: the 24 plus a joker, called the Benny, with the two of spades standing in when the pack has no joker. Five each, four left face down | The Benny is the top trump, above the right bower. If it is turned up, the dealer's team are the makers and the dealer names trump before looking at the hand. The dealer's partner can make the turned suit trump only by playing alone. Game is 11 |
| 32-card euchre | Sevens and eights added as the low cards, 32 in all. Five each | Played the same way. More cards sit out, so the high cards are less likely to be in play and a hand is harder to read. |
| Three players, Buck euchre | 24 cards, everyone for themselves. Four hands of five and no up-card. The spare hand is the widow, and each player in turn may swap for it unseen, the dealer's right first | Players bid the number of tricks they will take, from one up, and the high bidder names trump or no trump. The others stay in or drop out. Everyone starts at 15 and counts down one per trick won. A bidder who falls short, or anyone who stays in and takes no trick, adds five. First to zero or below wins |
| Two players | 24 cards. Each player gets four cards face down, four face up on top of those, and four in hand | The non-dealer names trump or passes, and then the dealer must choose. The non-dealer leads. Twelve tricks, and the maker needs seven. A point per trick won, or all 12 to the opponent when the maker is euchred. Game is 31 |
Rules as recorded by pagat.com, Euchre, with its page on Buck Euchre for the three-player game, and Joe Chellman's page on euchre for two players, which pagat links.
Common questions
How many cards are in a euchre deck?
24: the nine, ten, jack, queen, king and ace of each suit. British tables add a joker for 25, and some tables add the sevens and eights for 32.
What is a bower in euchre?
A jack on trump duty. The jack of the trump suit is the right bower, the highest card in the game. The other jack of the same color is the left bower, second highest, and it counts as a trump for the whole hand.
What is a euchre?
A failed promise. The team that made trump needs three of the five tricks. Take two or fewer and they are euchred, and the other team scores 2.
What does going alone mean in euchre?
One player on the making side plays the hand without a partner, who lays the cards face down. All five tricks alone score 4 instead of 2. Three or four score 1 as usual, and fewer than three is a euchre.
Can you play euchre with a regular deck?
Yes. Pull the nines through aces out of a standard 52-card deck and you have the 24. The twos through eights stay in the box, and two of them make the score markers.
Score keeper
For each hand, enter how many tricks each team took, mark the team that called trump, and mark the maker that went alone. It scores 1, 2 or 4 to the makers and 2 to the defenders for a euchre, and it warns when the tricks do not add up to five. Add the next hand with the plus button. It keeps the game on this device.
| This hand | ||
|---|---|---|
| Hand score |