How to Play Euchre: A Beginner’s Guide
Euchre can look a little confusing the first time you sit down at the table. Someone turns over a card, people start talking about ordering it up, one of the Jacks suddenly changes suits, and before long somebody is accusing their partner of getting them euchred.
The good news is that Euchre is actually a pretty simple game once you understand a few key rules. Euchre is a four-player card game played with two teams of two. Each player gets five cards, one suit becomes trump, and your team tries to win at least three of the five tricks.
The part that trips up most new players is understanding trump—especially the right and left bowers. Once you understand those, the rest of the game falls into place pretty quickly. This guide will walk you through how to play Euchre from the beginning of a hand through scoring it at the end.
What You Need to Play Euchre
Traditional Euchre is played with four players, divided into two teams. Partners sit across from each other at the table.
You use a 24-card deck containing:
9
10
Jack
Queen
King
Ace
These cards are used from each of the four suits: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. You can create a Euchre deck from a normal deck of playing cards simply by removing everything from the 2 through the 8.
Most Euchre games are played until one team reaches 10 points. There are plenty of Euchre house rules and regional variations, so you may occasionally run into people who play a little differently. For this guide, we'll use the common four-player version of Euchre.
Understanding Trump
Before worrying about dealing, bidding, or scoring, there is one concept you need to understand:
Trump.
Every hand of Euchre has one suit designated as trump. Trump cards are more powerful than cards from the other three suits. Even the lowest trump card can beat an Ace from a non-trump suit.
For example, suppose hearts are trump. If one player plays the A♠ and another player plays the 9♥, the 9♥ wins because a trump card beats any non-trump card.
That's why choosing trump is such an important part of Euchre. If you have several strong cards in one suit, you may want that suit to become trump.
But there's one unusual rule that makes Euchre different from many other card games: the Jacks.
The Right and Left Bower
In a normal non-trump suit, the cards rank:
Ace → King → Queen → Jack → 10 → 9
Trump is different. The two strongest cards in the entire hand are called the right bower and left bower.
The right bower is the Jack of the trump suit. The left bower is the Jack of the same color as the trump suit.
If hearts are trump:
J♥ — Right bower
J♦ — Left bower
A♥
K♥
Q♥
10♥
9♥
If spades are trump:
J♠ — Right bower
J♣ — Left bower
A♠
K♠
Q♠
10♠
9♠
Here's the rule beginners really need to remember:
The left bower actually becomes part of the trump suit.
If hearts are trump, the J♦ is no longer considered a diamond for that hand. It's a heart. That matters quite a bit once the cards start being played.
Dealing the Cards
The dealer gives each player five cards. Traditionally, Euchre cards are dealt in groups of two and three rather than one card at a time, but the important thing is simply that everyone ends up with five cards.
After the deal, four cards remain. The top card of those remaining cards is turned face up in the middle of the table.
Let's say the card turned up is the Q♥. That doesn't automatically make hearts trump. Instead, the players now decide whether they want hearts to become trump.
How Trump Is Chosen
Choosing trump happens before each hand is played. There can be two rounds.
Round One: Ordering Up the Turned-Up Suit
The player to the left of the dealer gets the first choice. That player can either pass or choose the suit of the turned-up card as trump. If they pass, the decision moves clockwise to the next player, eventually reaching the dealer.
If someone wants the turned-up suit to become trump, they order it up. So if the Q♥ is showing, a player who orders it up is making hearts trump.
The dealer then picks up the Q♥ and adds it to their hand. Since the dealer now has six cards, they discard one card face down to get back to five. The dealer's partner can also order the dealer up.
You may hear someone say: "Pick it up." That's simply another way of telling the dealer that the turned-up suit is being made trump.
Round Two: Calling Another Suit
What if everybody passes? The dealer turns the face-up card back down, and the players get another opportunity to choose trump, again beginning with the player to the dealer's left.
This time a player can call one of the other three suits as trump. If hearts were originally turned up and everyone passed, hearts cannot be chosen during the second round.
Someone might instead call: "Clubs." Clubs are now trump and play begins.
If everyone passes again, what happens next depends on the rules your group uses. One common variation is stick the dealer, where the dealer cannot pass during the second round and must choose a trump suit. Other groups allow the hand to be redealt.
This is one of those rules worth asking about before the game starts.
Who Is the Maker?
Once someone chooses trump, that player's team becomes the makers. You won't necessarily hear people use the word "maker" at every Euchre table, though.
Players will often describe the same thing by asking:
"Who ordered it up?"
or:
"Who called it up?"
If you hear either of those questions, they're basically asking which player chose trump.
If someone orders the dealer to pick up the turned-up card during the first round, that player and their partner are the makers. If someone calls a suit during the second round, that player and their partner are the makers.
The makers now need to win at least three of the five tricks. The other team—the defenders—is trying to stop them. If the makers fail to win at least three tricks, they have been euchred.
And yes, that's where the name of the game comes from.
How to Play a Trick
Once trump has been chosen, the actual card playing begins. The player to the dealer's left leads the first trick by playing any card from their hand. Then each player plays one card, moving clockwise around the table, so there are four cards in each trick.
You Must Follow Suit
If you have a card matching the suit that was led, you must play that suit. For example, suppose the first player leads the K♣. If you have a club, you have to play a club.
If you don't have a club, you can play any card from your hand. That could include a trump card.
Who Wins the Trick?
If nobody plays trump, the highest card of the suit that was led wins. If someone plays trump, the highest trump card wins.
The player who wins the trick collects those four cards and leads the next trick. Play continues until all five tricks have been completed.
Don't Forget About the Left Bower
This is where the left bower catches a lot of new players. Suppose hearts are trump and someone leadsdiamonds. You are holding the J♦.
It may look like you have a diamond. You don't.
Because hearts are trump, the J♦ is the left bower. For this hand, it counts as a heart. If that's your only card that looks like a diamond, you are actually void in diamonds and may play any card you want.
It feels strange the first few times you play, but eventually it becomes second nature.
Winning the Hand
There are only five tricks in a Euchre hand, which means one team is guaranteed to win at least three.
If the makers win three or four tricks, they successfully made their bid. If they win all five tricks, they have swept the hand, sometimes called a march.
If the makers win only zero, one, or two tricks, the defenders won at least three. The makers have been euchred, which is especially painful because the defending team gets extra points for doing it.
How Euchre Scoring Works
Standard Euchre scoring is pretty simple:
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Makers win 3 or 4 tricks | 1 |
| Makers win all 5 tricks | 2 |
| Makers are euchred | 2 to defenders |
| Lone player wins 3 or 4 tricks | 1 |
| Lone player wins all 5 tricks | 4 |
So if your team calls trump and wins three tricks, you score 1 point. Win all five and you score 2 points. But if you call trump and the opponents win three or more tricks, you've been euchred and the opponents score 2 points.
Most games continue until one team reaches 10 points.
There is one important scoring rule involving loners that sometimes confuses new players: going alone doesn't automatically make a hand worth more points. If a lone player wins only three or four tricks, their team still scores just 1 point. The big reward comes only if the lone player wins all five tricks.
Going Alone
When a player chooses trump, they can sometimes decide to go alone. Going alone means playing the hand without your partner. Your partner puts their cards down and sits out that hand, leaving you to play against both opponents by yourself.
Why would anyone want to do that? Because the reward for a perfect loner is much larger. If you go alone and win all five tricks, your team scores 4 points instead of the normal 2-point score for sweeping the hand with your partner.
But here's an important detail:
You do not need to win all five tricks for the loner to succeed.
If you go alone and win three or four tricks, your team still wins the hand and scores 1 point.
For example:
Win 5 tricks alone → 4 points
Win 4 tricks alone → 1 point
Win 3 tricks alone → 1 point
Win 2 or fewer tricks alone → you've been euchred, and the defenders score 2 points
So going alone creates an opportunity for a big score, but you only get that 4-point payoff if you take every trick. Deciding when your hand is strong enough to go alone is a strategy question all by itself.
A Complete Euchre Hand From Start to Finish
Let's put everything together.
There are four players:
Sarah
Mike
Lisa
Tom
Sarah and Lisa are partners. Mike and Tom are partners. Sarah is the dealer.
1. Sarah Deals
Each player receives five cards. The next card is turned face up: Q♥
2. Players Decide Whether to Make Hearts Trump
Mike is sitting to Sarah's left, so he gets the first choice. Mike passes, and then Lisa passes.
Tom likes his hearts and says: "Pick it up."
Tom has ordered the Q♥ up. That means hearts are trump, and Tom and Mike are now the makers.
3. Sarah Picks Up the Card
Because Sarah is the dealer, she picks up the Q♥. She now has six cards, so she chooses one card from her hand and discards it face down. Sarah now has five cards again.
4. Mike Leads the First Trick
Mike is to the dealer's left, so he leads. Each player plays one card, and everyone must follow the suit Mike leads if they can.
The highest card of that suit wins—unless someone plays a heart, since hearts are trump.
5. Five Tricks Are Played
The winner of each trick leads the next one. After all five tricks, Tom and Mike have won three. Because they called trump and won at least three tricks, they made their hand.
6. The Hand Is Scored
Tom and Mike won three tricks, so they score 1 point.
7. The Deal Moves
The deal moves clockwise to Mike, and a new hand begins. A new card will be turned up, a new trump suit may be chosen, and the process starts again.
Beginner Euchre Rules to Remember
If you're about to play your first game, these are the rules worth keeping in your head:
Euchre is normally played with four players in teams of two.
Each player receives five cards.
One suit becomes trump each hand.
Trump beats every non-trump suit.
The Jack of trump is the right bower and the highest card.
The Jack of the same color is the left bower and the second-highest card.
The left bower actually becomes part of the trump suit.
You must follow the suit that was led if you can.
The team that calls trump needs at least three of the five tricks.
If the makers get two tricks or fewer, they are euchred.
Makers normally score 1 point for three or four tricks and 2 points for all five.
A lone player gets 4 points only by winning all five tricks.
A lone player who wins three or four tricks gets only 1 point.
The deal moves clockwise after every hand.
If you can remember those rules, you know enough to sit down and start playing.
Expect Some House Rules
There's one more thing every new Euchre player should know:
People have opinions about Euchre rules. Strong opinions.
You may run into variations involving:
Stick the dealer
Redealing certain hands
Different deck sizes
Different winning scores
Farmer's hand or similar redeal rules
That doesn't necessarily mean one group is playing Euchre correctly and another is playing it incorrectly. Euchre has plenty of regional and family traditions. The easiest solution is simply to ask about house rules before the game begins. It may save you an argument around trick three.
Ready to Play Euchre
Euchre becomes much easier once you've played a few hands. At first you'll spend a lot of time remembering which Jack is the left bower and figuring out whether you have to follow suit. Before long, you'll start thinking about much more interesting questions: Should I order this up? Should I lead trump? Is this hand good enough to go alone?
That's when Euchre really gets interesting.
For your first few games, concentrate on the basics: know which suit is trump, remember that the left bower changes suits, follow suit when required, and keep track of who called trump.
And if keeping track of the score, dealer, and trump is one more thing than you want to think about while learning, the What’s Trump?app can handle that part of the game for you. Then you can concentrate on learning how to play—and figuring out why your partner ordered that hand up in the first place.