Euchre

How to play

Four players in two partnerships, sitting across from each other. Twenty-four cards — nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace — five to each player, and five tricks to win.

One card is turned up. Going round from the dealer’s left, each player may order it up, making that suit trumps, or pass. Whoever orders it up, the dealer picks that card up and throws one away — so ordering up an opponent’s deal hands them a card. If all four pass, the card is turned down, its suit is out, and a second round offers the other three.

Then it is an ordinary trick game: follow the suit led if you can, highest of that suit takes it, and any trump beats any other suit.

The bowers

Trumps do not run in the printed order, and this is the part that makes Euchre Euchre.

1. Right bower — the jack of trumps. The highest card in the game.
2. Left bower — the jack of the other suit of the same colour, which joins the trump suit for this hand.
3. Then ace, king, queen, ten, nine of trumps.

Two consequences people forget. The trump suit has no ordinary jack any more — that card is the right bower. And the suit the left bower came from is a card short: with hearts as trumps there are seven hearts and five diamonds in the pack, not six and six.

On this table both bowers are marked with a letter and sorted into the trump group of your hand, so you cannot miss which suit they are playing as.

Scoring

• Whoever names trumps must take at least three of the five — between the partners, not each.
• Three or four tricks: 1 point. All five — a march — 2.
• Going alone: your partner sits the hand out. All five alone is 4 points; three or four is still 1.
• Fall short and you are euchred: 2 points to the other side, which is more than making the call is worth.
• A match runs to 10, and the highest total wins.

Modes

First to 10

Hands until a side reaches ten. A euchre is worth two, so one bad call can hand the game away.

First to 5

The same game to half the distance, which makes going alone a real gamble rather than a flourish — four points is the whole match.

Learn the bowers

Your hand is broken down into what it is actually worth in each suit before you call, the left bower is called out by name, and a hint is always there. Nothing is recorded.

Daily deal

Four hands, one from each dealer, and everyone gets the same cards today.

The opponents — and your partner

All three computer players run the same code at the same strength, your partner included. Before calling they count their bowers, their trump length and their off-aces — and, crucially, they price who gets the turn-up: ordering up an opponent’s deal is worth less than ordering up your own partner’s, and ordering a jack into an opponent’s hand is worth a great deal less than nothing. In play they use the same effective-suit rule you do, so they know a left bower is a trump.

Casual

Calls on almost anything and plays whatever comes to hand. The friendly game to learn the bowers on.

Steady

Counts its bowers, its trump length and its off-aces before it calls, and mostly plays them in the right order.

Sharp

Calls at the point that measured best over thousands of hands, plays the same reading every single time, and will not order the turn-up into an opponent dealer's hand to get it.

The levels differ in where they draw the line on calling and how consistently they play — measured, not asserted. With the tested pair filling both seats of one partnership and every deal played twice with the sides swapped, Steady scores about 0.28 points a hand more than Casual, and Sharp about 0.05 more than Steady. Two identical opponents come out dead level, which is how those numbers are known to mean anything. They never differ in what they are allowed to see.

A few things worth knowing

• Count your call from what will actually win: the bowers, the ace of trumps, a third trump, and an ace in a side suit. Three tricks is the bar, and a hand of high cards in the wrong suits will not get there.
• Look at who is dealing before you order it up. The turn-up goes to them, and a bower ordered into an opponent’s hand has just cost you the hand you were trying to win.
• As the dealer, you are judging the hand you would hold — six cards minus your worst. That is why the dealer can call on less than anybody else.
• Euchring somebody is worth two points and making your own call is worth one. When you are not sure, defending is often the better bet.

Privacy and local play

Your hand, your settings and your record are stored on this device and nowhere else. There is no account, no sign-in and no gameplay request to any server. The reset button clears this game’s data and leaves every other Zerdly tool alone.

Questions

Why did a diamond just win a heart trick?

Because it was not a diamond. In Euchre the jack of the same colour as trumps joins the trump suit for that hand — so if hearts are trumps, the jack of diamonds IS a heart. It is called the left bower, it is the second-highest card in the game behind the jack of hearts, and it must be played when hearts are led. On this table it is marked with an L and sorted in with your trumps, and its accessible name says what it counts as.

Why can I not play my jack when its own suit is led?

Same rule, the other way round. If hearts are trumps, the jack of diamonds is a heart — so when diamonds are led it is not a diamond and cannot be used to follow, as long as you hold a real one. Its printed suit is one card short for the whole hand: there are seven hearts and five diamonds rather than six and six.

Why would I not order up a jack?

Because ordering it up hands it to the DEALER, whoever ordered it. If the dealer is on the other side you have just given them the best card in the game. That is the single most common way a new Euchre player loses a hand, and it is why the panel names who picks it up before you decide.

What does it cost to be euchred?

Your side names trumps and then has to take at least three of the five tricks between the two of you. Fall short and the OTHER side scores 2 — more than the 1 you would have got for making it. Stopping somebody else's call is worth as much as making your own, which is the whole tension of the game.

Which house rules does this table use?

1 point for three or four tricks, 2 for all five, 2 to the defenders for a euchre, and 4 for taking all five alone (three or four alone is still 1). "Screw the dealer" is ON: if everybody passes twice round, the dealer must name a suit rather than throw the hand in. Nine through ace, no joker, no farmer's hand, no defending alone. A match runs to 10 and the highest total wins.

Can my partner see my cards?

No, and neither can the opponents — it is the same mechanism for both. The only thing any computer player is ever given is one seat's view of the table, and that object has no field for anybody else's hand: not an empty one, no field at all. Everything they know they worked out from the turn-up, which is public, and from cards played in the open.

Is anything sent to a server?

No. The rules, the shuffle, the opponents, the sounds and your saved hand all run in your browser. There is no account, and clearing this game's data leaves every other Zerdly tool untouched.

More Zerdly Interactive

• Spades — The other partnership game — bid exactly, and beware the bags.
• Hearts — No trumps at all, and every trick you take costs you.
• Gin Rummy — Two-handed, with an exact meld optimiser behind the knock.
• Dou Dizhu — Two against one, and the pairing changes every hand.