Euchre is a trick-taking card game for four players in two teams of partners, played with a 24-card deck (the 9 through the ace of each suit). Everyone gets five cards, one player's bid makes a suit trump, and the team that chose trump has to win at least three of the five tricks. The jack of trump (the right bower) and the other jack of the same color (the left bower) are the two highest cards, and the first team to reach 10 points wins.
Below are the full rules exactly as Poozee's Euchre plays them, with worked examples checked against the game's own rules engine. Where common house rules differ, we say so. For when to bid and how to play your cards, see our Euchre strategy guide.
Euchre at a glance
| Topic | Rule |
|---|---|
| Players | 4, in two teams of 2. Partners sit across from each other |
| Deck | 24 cards: 9, 10, J, Q, K and A of each suit |
| Deal | 5 cards each. The other 4 form the kitty, and the top one is turned face up |
| Trump | Chosen each hand by bidding |
| Highest cards | The right bower (jack of trump), then the left bower (the other jack of the same color) |
| Goal | The team that made trump must take 3 of the 5 tricks. First to 10 points wins |
On Poozee, you sit at the bottom of the table (South). Your partner, North, sits across from you, and West and East are your opponents. All three are computer players.
How a hand of Euchre works
- Deal. The dealer gives everyone five cards. At a real table they go out in packets of two and three; Poozee deals for you. The four cards left over are the kitty, and the top one is turned face up.
- Round one of bidding. Starting on the dealer's left, each player can make the turned card's suit trump or pass.
- Round two (only if all four passed). The card is turned down, and each player can name any other suit as trump or pass.
- Play five tricks. The player on the dealer's left leads, everyone follows suit if they can, and the winner of each trick leads the next.
- Score the hand, and pass the deal one seat to the left.
On Poozee, East deals the first hand, so you bid first and lead the first trick.
Bidding: how trump is chosen
Round one: order it up
The player on the dealer's left speaks first. If they like the turned card's suit as trump, they say "I order it up," and that suit is trump. If not, they pass, and the choice moves to the left. When the dealer's own turn comes, they can pick it up or turn it down.
Whoever orders it up, the dealer takes the turned card into their hand and discards one card face down, so they're back to five. That's why ordering up is a big decision: if the dealer is on the other team, you just handed them a trump. The player who makes trump and their partner are the makers; the other team are the defenders.
Round two: name a suit
If all four pass, the dealer turns the card face down. Starting again on the dealer's left, each player can name any suit except the one that was just turned down, or pass.
Stick the dealer
If the first three players pass in round two as well, the dealer can't pass and must name one of the three other suits. This rule is called stick the dealer, and it means every hand gets played. Some groups skip it and simply redeal when everyone passes twice (see house rules below).
How often does each of these happen? We had four of Poozee's Medium computer players play 10,000 games (106,569 hands). With them, the turned card became trump in 78% of hands: the dealer picked it up in 46%, the dealer's partner ordered it up in 28%, and the players beside the dealer in 4%. Trump was named in round two in 22%, and the dealer was stuck in 0.2% of hands. Ordering up is rare beside the dealer for good reason: the strategy guide measures how many trumps each seat needs.
The bowers and the trump order
Once trump is set, the two jacks of that color jump to the top. The right bower is the jack of trump. The left bower is the jack of the other suit of the same color, and it stops belonging to its printed suit: for the whole hand it's a trump. That gives the trump suit seven cards and leaves its same-color partner with only five.
| Trump | Trumps, high to low | Same-color suit, high to low |
|---|---|---|
| Hearts | J♥, J♦, A♥, K♥, Q♥, 10♥, 9♥ | A♦, K♦, Q♦, 10♦, 9♦ |
| Diamonds | J♦, J♥, A♦, K♦, Q♦, 10♦, 9♦ | A♥, K♥, Q♥, 10♥, 9♥ |
| Spades | J♠, J♣, A♠, K♠, Q♠, 10♠, 9♠ | A♣, K♣, Q♣, 10♣, 9♣ |
| Clubs | J♣, J♠, A♣, K♣, Q♣, 10♣, 9♣ | A♠, K♠, Q♠, 10♠, 9♠ |
The two suits of the other color keep all six cards in the usual order: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9.
Following suit
- Follow suit if you can. Whatever suit is led, you must play a card of that suit if you have one.
- If you can't, play anything. A trump will usually win the trick. Any other card is a throwaway.
- The left bower follows trump, not its printed suit. This is the rule that trips up new players.
Hearts are trump in all three of these spots, and East has led:
| Situation | Your hand | Cards you may play |
|---|---|---|
| East led 10♦ | J♦, K♦, A♣, 9♥ | K♦ |
| East led 10♦ | J♦, A♣, 9♠ | J♦, A♣, 9♠ |
| East led 10♥ | J♦, K♦, A♣ | J♦ |
In the first hand, the J♦ is a heart, so your only diamond is the K♦ and you must play it. In the second, you have no diamonds at all (the J♦ doesn't count), so you can play anything, including the J♦ as a trump. In the third, hearts were led and the J♦ is your only heart, so you must play it. Poozee dims the cards you can't play, and if you tap one anyway, it tells you why, left bower included.
Who wins a trick
The highest trump wins the trick. If nobody played a trump, the highest card of the suit that was led wins, and cards of any other suit can't win, not even an ace. Here are five tricks, with the cards in the order they were played:
| Trump | Cards played, in order | Who wins |
|---|---|---|
| Hearts | West A♦, North J♦, East 10♦, you 9♦ | North (J♦) |
| Hearts | You J♦, West 9♥, North A♥, East J♥ | East (J♥) |
| Spades | West K♣, North A♣, East J♣, you 9♠ | East (J♣) |
| Spades | West J♥, North Q♥, East A♥, you 10♥ | East (A♥) |
| Clubs | You Q♥, West A♦, North 9♥, East K♥ | East (K♥) |
- First trick: North had no diamonds, and the J♦ is the left bower, so North trumped the ace.
- Second trick: leading the left bower leads trump, so everyone else had to play a heart. The right bower beats it.
- Third trick: East and you both trumped a club lead. The J♣ is the left bower when spades are trump, so it beats the 9♠.
- Fourth trick: with spades trump, the J♥ is just a jack, between the queen and the 10.
- Fifth trick: no trump was played, so the highest heart wins. West's ace of diamonds is off-suit.
Going alone
The player who makes trump can say "alone" (on Poozee, turn on the Go alone switch under the bid buttons before you bid). Their partner puts their cards face down and sits the hand out, so each trick has three cards. A loner who takes all five tricks scores 4 points instead of 2.
Two details worth knowing:
- Who leads: the player on the dealer's left, as usual. If that player is sitting out because their partner went alone, the next player leads instead.
- The dealer's partner ordering up alone: in round one, if the dealer's partner orders up alone, the dealer sits out and doesn't pick up the card. If anyone else goes alone, the dealer still picks up and discards.
Only the makers can go alone on Poozee. For which hands are strong enough, the strategy guide has a table measured over 20,000 hands.
How scoring works in Euchre
After the fifth trick, only one team scores:
- Makers take 3 or 4 tricks: 1 point.
- Makers take all 5 (a march): 2 points, or 4 points if the maker went alone.
- Makers take fewer than 3: they're euchred, and the defenders score 2 points.
Worked examples
| Hand | Score |
|---|---|
| North orders up, your team takes 3 tricks | You and North +1 |
| North orders up, your team takes 4 tricks | You and North +1 |
| North orders up, your team takes all 5 (a march) | You and North +2 |
| You go alone and take 4 tricks | You and North +1 |
| You go alone and take all 5 | You and North +4 |
| West calls clubs, their team takes 2 tricks | You and North +2 |
| East goes alone and takes 1 trick | You and North +2 |
Going alone only pays extra for a march: a loner with four tricks scores the same 1 point as a team with four. And euchring a loner is worth the usual 2.
How hands usually score
In the same 10,000 computer games, here's how the 106,569 hands scored:
| How the makers did | Points | Share of hands |
|---|---|---|
| 3 or 4 tricks | 1 | 62.7% |
| All 5 tricks, with a partner | 2 | 11.9% |
| All 5 tricks, alone | 4 | 6.8% |
| Fewer than 3 tricks (euchred) | 2 to the defenders | 18.6% |
Winning the game
The first team to reach 10 points wins, checked at the end of each hand. Since only one team scores per hand, there are no ties. Scores can pass 10: a team at 8 that marches alone finishes at 12. So at 8 points, a march wins the game, and at 9, any hand your team makes does.
A game between our Medium players lasted 10.7 hands on average, and half of all games took between 9 and 12 hands.
What a Euchre hand looks like
Whatever suit ends up trump, it has seven cards (six of its own plus the left bower) spread over 24. Here are the exact odds of how many of them a five-card hand holds:
| Trumps in your hand | How often |
|---|---|
| 0 | 14.6% |
| 1 | 39.2% |
| 2 | 33.6% |
| 3 | 11.2% |
| 4 or 5 | 1.4% |
So a hand holds two or more trumps 46% of the time. You'll hold at least one bower in 38.0% of hands, and both bowers in 3.6%, about 1 hand in 28. The turned card is a jack (the right bower if it's picked up) in 1 deal in 6. We also checked these against 100,000 deals from Poozee's shuffle, and every figure matched the exact odds within 0.2 percentage points.
Euchre terms
- Right bower: the jack of the trump suit, the highest card.
- Left bower: the jack of the same color as trump. It counts as a trump, the second-highest card.
- Kitty: the four cards not dealt. The top one is turned face up for round one.
- Order up: in round one, make the turned card's suit trump, which sends the card to the dealer. When the dealer does it, it's picking it up.
- Makers and defenders: the team that chose trump, and the team trying to stop them.
- Next: the other suit of the same color as the turned-down card, often named in round two.
- Cross: either suit of the other color from the turned-down card.
- Loner: a hand played alone.
- March: taking all five tricks.
- Euchred: what happens to makers who take fewer than three tricks.
- Stick the dealer: the rule that the dealer must name trump if everyone passes twice.
- Renege: failing to follow suit when you could. Poozee won't let you.
House rules: how Poozee compares
Euchre has many local variations. Here's what Poozee does, and what you might see elsewhere:
| Rule | On Poozee | Other tables |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone passes twice | Stick the dealer | Many groups redeal instead |
| Target score | 10 points | Some play to 5, 7 or 11 |
| First lead in a lone hand | The dealer's left, skipping a player who sits out | Some have the player on the loner's left lead |
| Defending alone | Not offered | Some let a defender go alone, and euchring the makers that way scores 4 |
| Extra cards | None | Some add a joker, the "best bower," above both jacks |
Practice on Poozee
Poozee's Euchre has three computer levels, from Easy (which makes frequent mistakes) to Hard, and none of them looks at your cards. Hint suggests a bid, a discard or a card when you're stuck. When the rules feel natural, the strategy guide shows when to order up from each seat, when to call next and when to go alone.
Keep playing
- Play Euchre with a computer partner
- Euchre strategy, tested over 20,000 computer hands
- How to play Spades, another partnership game with bidding
- Play Spades or Hearts for longer trick-taking games
Frequently asked questions
Is the left bower a trump card?
Yes. The left bower is the jack of the other suit of the same color as trump, and for the whole hand it counts as a trump, not as its printed suit. If hearts are trump, the jack of diamonds is the second-highest heart, and you can't use it to follow a diamond lead.
What happens if everyone passes twice in Euchre?
Poozee plays stick the dealer: after seven passes, the dealer can't pass and must name a suit other than the one turned down. Many kitchen-table groups instead throw the hand in and let the next player deal.
How many points do you get for taking all five tricks?
Taking all five tricks is a march, worth 2 points, or 4 points if the player who made trump went alone. Taking three or four tricks is worth 1 point either way.
What does it mean to get euchred?
The team that made trump is euchred when it takes fewer than three tricks. The other team scores 2 points, whether or not the maker went alone.