Over the past few weeks, I've been learning how to play euchre -I taught it to the rest of my family and a few of my friends and it has been quite enjoyable. It was one of those games that I knew existed, but I didn't know anyone who played it. When I moved into the dorms this year, I found out that both my roommate and my sibling's roommate knew and liked the game. Neither of them had time to teach me, so I tried to learn it myself.
Here is my overview of the rules of euchre:
If you've never played a trick-taking game, you might want to start with an easier game such as hearts, spades, or whist. From here, I'm going to assume you at least have a basic understanding of concepts such as tricks, trump, and bidding. The goal of each hand of euchre is for your partnership to collectively win at least three out of five tricks. To start a hand, the dealer deals each person a five-card hand. Then they place the remaining four cards face-down in the center of the table, forming the "kitty." The top card of the kitty is then flipped face-up on top of the pile.
After each hand is dealt, the trump suit for the round must be selected. The suit of the card that was turned face-up on top of the kitty is known as the "candidate suit." The player to the left of the dealer has the choice of either choosing the candidate suit as the trump or passing to the next player. If pass, then the player to their left is given the same choice. If all players pass, then the face-up card is turned down and the first player is given the choice of any suit as trump, or to pass. If all players pass again in this second round of bidding, then the hand is declared a misdeal and redealt.
When a player decides not to pass and chooses the trump, the bidding is over. If it was in the first round of bidding, and the top card of the kitty is still face-up, then the dealer (not necessarily the declarer), can take the top card of the kitty and trade it with a card from their hand if they wish. The round then begins with the chosen suit as trump.
Some people like to play with a rule known as "stick the dealer," which means that if all players pass the bidding in both rounds, then the dealer is forced to declare the trump suit. I don't like that rule very much, as I think it adds a bit too much luck into the game. I prefer allowing the hand to be redealt if no one wishes to declare.
Gameplay then consists of a series of five tricks. The first trick is led by the player to the left of the dealer (not necessarily the declarer). As with similar games, players must follow suit if they are able. However, they do not need to win the trick if they can (like in pinochle), and trump can be played any time a player has a void in the current suit (unlike the game hearts). As always, the highest trump card played wins the trick, if there are no trumps then the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. The player who wins a trick leads the next one.
An interesting quirk of euchre is the rank of cards in the trump suit. In the trump suit (and only in the trump suit), the jack is the highest ranking card, ranking even above ace. The jack of trump is referred to as the "right bower." Then, in between the ranks of the jack and ace of trump sits a card known as the "left bower." The left bower is the jack of the other suit that is the same color as the trump suit, so it the trump is diamonds then the left bower with be the jack of hearts, if the trump is spades then the left bower will be the jack of clubs, etc. The left bower is considered to be a member of the trump suit, and NOT the suit that it comes from, so if a trick is led with the left bower, other players must follow suit by playing trumps. This means that the rank of cards within the trump suit, from highest to lowest, is: right bower, left bower, A, K, Q, 10, 9.
If the declarer (person that chose trump) wishes to, they may choose to play a hand alone, meaning that their partner does not play any cards that round. This has scoring implications as shown in the next section.
The team that chose trump is known as the "makers," and the opposing team is known as the "defenders." Each round ends with one of the following conditions, listed with the corresponding score for the winning team. When a partnership reaches ten points, they win the game.
| Condition | Score |
|---|---|
| Makers win 3-4 tricks | 1 point to makers |
| Makers win all 5 tricks | 2 points to makers |
| Declarer goes alone and wins 3-4 tricks | 1 point to makers |
| Declarer goes alone and wins all 5 tricks | 4 points to makers |
| Defenders win at least 3 tricks | 2 points to defenders |
Euchre is a very fun, fast-paced trick-taking game. It could be very good to learn before learning to play bridge, as it has fewer cards to keep track of and simplified bidding while retaining many of the same concepts.