How to Play Euchre

What you need for game night

• Four players. Partners sit across from each other, never side by side.
• A standard deck with the twos through eights removed. You should have 24 cards: 9, 10, jack, queen, king, ace in all four suits.
• Paper, a score pad, or two columns of hash marks.

Sit, pick a dealer, agree on two house calls

Partners sit across and play as a team. Cut for the first deal, or point at someone. After each hand, the deal moves clockwise.

Before the first card, say these two things out loud:

1. How you deal. Most tables deal in two passes: three cards then two, or four then one. Both are fine. Pick one.
2. Stick the dealer. This is a common house rule, especially in the Midwest, not a law of the game. If everyone passes in the second round of calling, stick-the-dealer forces the dealer to name a trump suit so the hand always gets played. Without it, the dealer may pass too, the cards go back in the pack, and the next person deals. Beginners usually like stick-the-dealer. Agree now.

The deal and the kitty

Shuffle the 24-card pack. Deal clockwise until each player has five cards. Four cards remain. That leftover packet is the kitty.

Turn the top kitty card face up. Call it the upcard. Its suit is the first candidate for trump. The other three kitty cards stay face down. Nobody looks at them. They are out of the hand.

Calling trump, round 1: pick it up or pass

Starting with the player to the dealer's left, each person gets one chance to speak.

• Pick it up (or "I order it") means the upcard's suit becomes trump. The dealer must take that card into their hand and discard one card face down, out of play. Then the hand is played in that suit.
• Pass means you decline. The next player decides.

If the first three players pass, the dealer may pick the upcard up for themselves or pass.

If all four pass, the dealer turns the upcard face down. That suit is dead for this hand. You now do a second round of calling.

First-night test: pass unless you want that suit even after the dealer gains the extra trump.

Calling trump, round 2: name a different suit

Same order, starting left of the dealer. Now a player may name trump: any suit except the one you just turned down. More on when to name a suit: euchre bidding.

If your table uses stick-the-dealer and the first three players pass, the dealer names a suit. If you are not using that house rule, the dealer may pass, and you throw the hand in.

When you call (in either round), you may also go alone. See below.

Going alone

Say it when you call trump: "pick it up, alone," or "hearts, alone." Your partner places their cards face down and sits the hand out. You play your five cards against the other two players.

A loner that takes all five tricks scores 4 points. A regular march is only 2. Three or four tricks still score 1. Fewer than three, and they score 2 for euchring you. Save alone for a hand that already looks like five tricks (two bowers and an ace is the classic picture). When that is actually worth it: going alone in euchre.

How a trick actually works

The player to the left of the dealer leads the first card. (Some tables change the lead when someone is alone. Standard North American euchre leaves the lead with the seat left of the dealer. Agree if you care.)

Then, clockwise:

1. You must follow suit if you have a card of the suit that was led.
2. The Left Bower is trump for this hand, not its printed suit. If diamonds are trump, the jack of hearts is a diamond for following suit. If hearts were led, that jack does not "follow hearts."
3. If you cannot follow, you may play any card, including trump.
4. The highest trump in the trick wins. If nobody played trump, the highest card of the led suit wins.
5. The winner of the trick leads the next one.

You play five tricks. Then you score, gather the cards, and the next dealer deals.

Trump rank, with hearts as the example

When a suit is trump, its jack becomes the strongest card in the pack. The other jack of the same color becomes the second-strongest card and hops into the trump suit for the rest of the hand. Those two jacks are the bowers.

Hearts trump, high to low in trump:

Off-suit cards rank ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9 and never beat trump. Same-color pairs are hearts with diamonds, and spades with clubs. Full walkthrough: Euchre bowers.

Scoring, in the amount you need tonight

The team that named trump is trying to take three tricks. The other team is trying to stop them.

First team to 10 wins. Full chart: Euchre scoring.

Walk through one first-night hand

You are South. Partner sits North. East dealt. The upcard is the king of clubs.

Your five cards:

• Jack of clubs
• Ace of clubs
• 10 of clubs
• Ace of hearts
• 9 of spades

If clubs become trump, you hold the Right Bower, the ace, and the 10. That is a calling hand. You are sitting left of the dealer, so you speak first. You say pick it up.

East takes the king of clubs and discards a side-suit loser. Clubs are trump.

You lead the Right Bower. Trump comes out. You get the trick. You lead the ace of clubs. If the Left Bower (jack of spades) is still out, someone may take this. That is fine. You are hunting three tricks, not a pretty story.

Take three, even if partner takes none, and you still score 1. If they had taken three, you would be euchred and they would score 2.

What you may say, and what you may not

You cannot tell your partner what you hold. The upcard, played cards, and score are public. After the hand, talk it through. On CardPractice you do not have to wait: practice with all four hands visible and pause on the trick that confused you.

Night-one strategy

• If you named trump and hold three of it, leading trump early often pulls theirs so your aces cash later.
• Do not steal a trick your partner is already winning.
• Count trump as they appear. There are seven once Left joins the suit.
• "Next" (the other suit of the same color in round 2) is a common tactic, not a rule. See euchre next.

You know enough to play. Keep the cheat sheet for one more night, then the euchre lessons and open-hand practice. Seeing partner's cards is not cheating here. It is the point.