Four players, two partnerships, five tricks a hand.
Play with other people
Anyone can join a table with its code. There are no accounts and nothing to
install. A euchre table is always four seats, and any seat nobody is sitting in is played
by the computer — so a table works with two people, or three, or four.
Your table code
Send the link to whoever you want to play
with. It opens the game with this table already chosen; they still pick their own
name. If it is easier to read the code out, that works too.
Send the code to the people you want to play with, wait
for them to appear in the seats below, then start. Any seat still empty is played by the
computer, so you can start whenever you like.
Seats
Every seat at this table, who is in it, and which side they are
on. Seats 1 and 3 are partners, and so are seats 2 and 4. Empty seats are played by the
computer.
Seat
Who
Side
Status
New game
Game
Review
Play
Records
Settings and help
Your turn
Your hand
Current trick
Last completed trick
The upcard and the kitty
Players
Each player, the side they are on, what they did in the bidding,
how many cards they are holding and how many tricks they have taken this hand. Tricks
always total five.
Player
Side
Role
Cards
Tricks
Score
The two sides, the tricks each has taken this hand, the points
each has in this game, and how many games each has won.
Side
Tricks this hand
Points this game
Games won
What has happened G
Newest entry first. Press G to jump here, then Up and Down to move entry by entry, Home for the newest and End for the oldest. This region is never spoken automatically, so you can read back through it at your own pace.
How to play Euchre
Four players in two fixed partnerships, sitting alternately: seats 1 and 3 are one side,
seats 2 and 4 the other. You are in seat 1, so your partner is in seat 3, across the table.
First side to ten points wins.
The deck
Twenty-four cards: nine, ten, jack, queen, king and ace in each suit. Everything lower is
taken out.
The bowers — the one rule that surprises everybody
Once a suit is trump, the two highest cards in the game are:
The right bower — the jack of the trump suit.
The left bower — the jack of the other suit of the same
colour. And while it is the left bower, it is a trump card and not a card of
its printed suit at all. With spades trump, the jack of clubs is a spade: it
follows spades, and you may not play it on a club lead if you hold any spade.
So with spades trump the order is: jack of spades, jack of clubs, ace, king, queen, ten,
nine of spades — then everything else. Clubs are down to six cards, because their jack
has left.
This game marks both bowers in your hand and names them whenever a card is read out, so you
never have to work it out under time pressure.
The deal
Five cards each. Four are left over; the top one is turned face up for everybody to see.
That is the upcard.
The bidding
First round. Starting to the dealer's left, each player in turn may
order it up — making the upcard's suit trump — or pass. Whoever
orders it up, the dealer takes the upcard into their hand and puts one card back
face down. If the dealer orders it up themselves, that is called taking it up.
Second round. If all four pass, the upcard is turned down and its suit is
out for the hand. Starting again to the dealer's left, each player may name
any other suit as trump, or pass. If everybody passes again the hand is thrown in and
redealt — unless stick the dealer is on, in which case the dealer has to name
something.
Whoever settles the trump suit is called the maker, and their side has to
take at least three of the five tricks.
Going alone
The maker may play the hand alone. Their partner puts their cards down and
sits the hand out, so it is one player against two. It pays four points instead of two if
they take all five tricks, and nothing extra otherwise — so it is a bid for a sweep,
not a safer way to make three.
The play
The player to the dealer's left leads to the first trick. You must follow the suit that was
led if you can — remembering that the left bower counts as trump. If you cannot follow,
you may play anything, including trump. Highest trump takes the trick; with no trump in it,
the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads to the next one.
Scoring
What a hand is worth
The makers take
Score
Three or four tricks
1 point to the makers
All five tricks
2 points to the makers
All five, playing alone
4 points to the makers
Three or four, playing alone
1 point to the makers
Fewer than three — euchred
2 points to the other side
Being euchred is the thing to avoid: it hands the other side two points for a hand you asked
to play. That is why ordering up on a weak hand is worse than passing on a fair one.
What this game does not do
There is no defending alone, no farmer's hand, no no-trump and no six-handed variant. Those
are all real house rules somewhere; they are simply not implemented here.