Euchre

The Trick-Taking Card Game

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Add the game Euchre to your collection!

Goal

Take more tricks/sets of cards than your opponents

Number of Players

2 - 4 Players

Time to Play

30 minutes

Rapid Rules

Important: There is a bunch of special vocabulary that goes along with Euchre. This can get in the way of new players learning the game. The rules here make minimal use of any specific vocabulary.

Setup

  1. Using a standard deck of cards, remove all cards except for A, K, Q, J, 10, and 9s
  2. If playing with 4 players, players need to form two partnerships who will work together during the game

General Play (4 Player Game)

  1. The dealer deals five cards to all players in two rounds:
    • Three cards at once to all players
    • Two cards at once to all players
  2. The dealer will turn the next card in the deck face up, then each player starting with the player to the left of the dealer will decide if they want that card's suit to be the superior or "trump" suit
    • A card of the trump suit, when played, is above cards in all other suits, and can only lose to a higher value card in the trump suit
    • If no player makes this suit trump then the card is turned over and players go around again and can name any suit as trump
  3. If a player opts to make the suit the trump suit, then the dealer will take the face-up card and place it into their hand
    • If a player thinks they don't need their partner's help to win tricks, then when deciding on the trump suit they can say they will be going "alone", and their partner will turn their cards face down and not participate in this round
  4. Starting from the dealer's left, then from whoever wins the trick, a player will play a single card and all other players must follow suit if possible
    • If a player does not have a card matching the played suit, they may play a card of any suit
  5. The player who plays the highest card wins the set of cards, or "trick"
    • Card values from highest to lowest:
      • Jack of trump suit
      • Jack of matching color suit
      • A, K, Q, 10, then 9 of trump
      • A, K, Q, J, 10, then 9 of played suit
        • Unless the J of the played suit is the matching color of the trump suit then it's a much more valuable card
  6. Players repeat steps 4-5 until all cards have been played
  7. Partnerships score based on the following:
    • If they selected the trump suit and win 3-4 tricks together or alone, they get 1 point
    • If they selected the trump suit and win all tricks they get 2 points
    • If one player selected the trump suit and wins all tricks alone, the partnership earns 4 points
    • If the partnership that selected trump lose 3 or more tricks, then the opponents get 2 points
  8. All cards are reshuffled, the player to the left of the dealer is now the new dealer, and players repeat steps 1-8 until 7 points are reached

General Play (2 Player Game)

  1. The dealer deals four cards face down to each player, four cards face up on top of the face down cards, and four cards to each player's hand
  2. Gameplay is largely the same with the following changes:
    • The trump suit is chosen based on the whatever suit the non-dealer chooses
    • Cards may be played from a player's hand or their face up cards
    • When a face up card is played, on the next round if there is a card underneath it that card now is face up
    • There is no going alone or bonus for it

Winning and Losing