Euchre

How to play Euchre

Euchre is a trick-taking card game for four players in two teams. You and North are partners against West and East, all played by the computer. It uses a short deck of 24 cards: the 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace of each suit.

• The deal: everyone gets five cards. Of the four left over, the top one is turned face up.
• Round 1 of bidding: starting with the player on the dealer's left, each player can order it up, which makes the turned card's suit trump, or pass. When someone orders it up, the dealer picks up the card and discards one face down.
• Round 2: if all four pass, the card is turned down, and each player in turn can name any other suit as trump, or pass.
• Stick the dealer: on Poozee, if everyone passes in round 2 too, the dealer must name trump. Many apps and kitchen tables use this rule, so a hand is never thrown in.
• Going alone: the player who makes trump can go alone. Their partner puts their cards down and sits out the hand.

Trumps and the bowers

The right bower (the jack of the trump suit) is the highest card. Next is the left bower, the other jack of the same color. It counts as a trump, not as its printed suit. If hearts are trump, the jack of diamonds is a heart for the whole hand. Then come the ace, king, queen, 10 and 9 of trump.

In the other suits, the ace is high and the 9 is low.

Playing the tricks

The player left of the dealer leads the first trick (or the next player, if that one is sitting out). You must follow suit if you can. If you can't, you may play a trump or throw away any card. The highest trump wins the trick; if no trump was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads the next trick.

Scoring

• 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 other team scores 2 points.

The first team to reach 10 points wins.

Playing on Poozee

• Pick a level. Easy makes lots of mistakes. Medium bids and plays by solid rules of thumb. Hard imagines many possible deals of the cards it can't see, plays each option out and picks the one that scores best for its team. It never looks at your cards.
• Bid with the buttons under the table. Turn on Go alone before you order up or name a suit if you want to play without North.
• The dealer's pickup: when you're the dealer and trump is ordered, the turned card joins your hand with a yellow dot. Tap the card you want to discard.
• Cards you can't play are dimmed on your turn. Tap one anyway and the game tells you why.
• Hint suggests a bid, a discard, or the card the Hard computer would play.
• Your game is saved in your browser, so you can close the tab and finish later.

Euchre tips for beginners

1. Count your trumps, and remember the left bower is one of them. The jack of the same color changes suit when trump is set.
2. Think about who gets the turned card. Ordering it up hands it to the dealer, which helps your team when the dealer is your partner and helps the other team when they're not.
3. If you made trump, lead trump. Pulling the other team's trumps early protects your aces later.
4. Don't trump your partner's ace. If North's ace is winning the trick, throw away a low card instead.
5. On defense, lead aces rather than trump. Leading trump helps the team that chose it.

Pro tip: When the dealer turns the card down, the players on either side of the dealer should look hard at "next", the other suit of the same color. The dealer's partner should usually avoid it. See our Euchre strategy guide for the numbers.

About Euchre

Euchre became popular in the United States in the 1800s and is still a favorite in the Midwest, especially in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. It's thought to be where the joker came from: some Euchre decks added an extra card, called the best bower, that ranked above both jacks.