Euchre Rules: How to Play Euchre

What you need to start

Take a standard 52-card deck and remove everything below the nine. You are left with 24 cards: the 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace in each suit. There are no jokers.

Four players form two partnerships, each player sitting opposite their partner so the turn passes alternately between the two teams. At CardPorch you are South, your partner is North, and West and East are your opponents. Play moves clockwise, and a game is played to 10 points.

The deal

The dealer gives five cards to each player, dealt in packets rather than one at a time — three then two, or two then three, going clockwise. Four cards are left over: the kitty. The dealer sets them face down in the middle and turns the top one face up.

That face-up card is the upcard, and it is the whole of the first round of bidding: the only suit anyone may name in round one is the suit of that upcard. The three cards beneath it stay face down and out of play for the rest of the hand. When the hand is over, the deal moves one seat to the left.

The bowers: the one rule everyone gets wrong

In euchre the two jacks of the trump colour outrank everything else, and one of them changes suit for the hand.

• The jack of the trump suit is the right bower. It is the highest card in the deck for that hand.
• The other jack of the same colour is the left bower. It is the second-highest card, and — this is the part that catches people — it counts as a card of the trump suit for the entire hand.

So if hearts are trump, the jack of diamonds is a heart. It beats the ace of hearts, it counts as a heart when you follow a heart lead, and it cannot be played to follow a diamond lead.

Everything below the bowers is ordinary:

• Trump, strongest first: right bower, left bower, ace, king, queen, 10, 9.
• Every other suit: ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9 — except the suit that lost its jack to the left bower, which holds only five cards for that hand.

Naming trump

Bidding decides which suit is trump and which partnership takes on the contract. The team that names trump are the makers, and they must win at least three of the five tricks or be punished for it.

Round one: order it up, or pass

Starting with the player to the dealer's left and going clockwise, each player either passes or orders it up — meaning the suit of the upcard becomes trump and the dealer must take that card into their hand. The dealer bids last; if the first three players pass, the dealer may simply take it up.

Either way, the dealer adds the upcard to their hand and discards one card face down, so everyone is back to five cards, and that discard is out of play for the hand. Remember that ordering up hands the dealer a trump card: ordering into an opponent's deal needs a stronger hand than ordering into your partner's.

Round two: name a suit

If all four players pass, the dealer turns the upcard face down onto the kitty and a second round begins, again starting to the dealer's left. Now a player may name any suit except the turned-down suit, or pass. Nobody picks the upcard up in this round. Naming the other suit of the same colour is called going next; crossing to the other colour is called crossing the river.

Going alone

Whenever a player names trump, in either round, they may declare that they are going alone. Their partner lays their five cards face down and takes no part in the hand. The lone maker plays against both opponents, so each trick holds three cards rather than four. Taking all five tricks alone scores 4 points instead of 2; taking three or four alone is worth the same single point as an ordinary make, so the call only pays when a march looks likely.

Stick the dealer

Most tables play stick the dealer, and it is on by default at CardPorch. Under this rule the dealer may not pass in the second round: if the bidding comes back around to them, they must name a suit, however poor their hand. With the rule switched off, a hand in which all four players pass twice is thrown in, the cards are gathered up, and the deal moves one seat to the left.

Playing the hand

The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick, no matter who named trump. If that player is sitting out because their partner went alone, the lead passes to the next active player on their left.

Play proceeds clockwise, one card each. The rules of the trick are short:

• You must follow suit if you can. If hearts are led and you hold a heart, you must play a heart — and while hearts are trump, the left bower counts as a heart for this purpose.
• If you cannot follow suit, play any card. Trumping is allowed but never required, and there is no obligation to beat the card currently winning.
• The highest trump in the trick wins it. If no trump is played, the highest card of the suit led wins. A card of any other suit cannot win the trick, however high it is.
• The winner of a trick leads the next one, and the trick is turned face down in front of them.

Five tricks are played, and then the hand is scored.

Scoring

Only one team scores in any hand, and only the makers' result matters. Everything follows from whether they reached three tricks.

The first partnership to reach 10 points wins the game. Traditionally the score is kept with two spare low cards per team, laid face up and face down across each other to show any number from one to ten — which is why euchre sets are sold with the fives and sixes left in.