Euchre Rules
Overview
Euchre is a four-player partnership trick-taking game. You play South with North as your partner against West and East. Each hand uses only five cards per player, so the trump call and the first lead matter immediately.
Deck and Deal
Use a 24-card deck containing 9, 10, jack, queen, king, and ace in every suit. Deal five cards to each player. The next card is turned face up. Its suit is the proposed trump suit for the hand.
Ordering Up Trump
Starting left of the dealer, each player may order up the turn card or pass. If someone orders it up, the dealer takes the up card into hand and discards one card. The ordering player and partner become the makers. In this browser version, if everyone passes, the dealer keeps the turn-card suit so the hand moves directly into play.
Bowers
The jack of trump is the right bower and is the highest card. The jack of the same-color suit is the left bower and becomes trump for this hand. For example, if diamonds are trump, the jack of hearts is also a diamond trump and ranks second only to the jack of diamonds.
Trick Play
The player left of the dealer leads the first trick. Players must follow the effective led suit if possible. Because the left bower counts as trump, it follows trump rather than its printed suit. If you cannot follow suit, you may play any card. The highest trump wins; otherwise the highest card in the led suit wins.
Scoring
The makers need at least three of the five tricks. Three or four tricks scores one point. Winning all five tricks scores two points. If the defenders take three or more tricks, the makers are euchred and the defenders score two points.
Common Mistakes
New players often forget that the left bower changes suit. Another common mistake is ordering up trump with only one medium trump card and no side ace. Because there are only five tricks, a weak call can be punished quickly.