Your first game of Euchre

Set up

Four people play in two partnerships, with partners sitting across from each other. The deck has 24 cards: the 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace of each suit. Each player gets five cards. The four cards left over are placed face down, and the top one is turned face up. The first team to 10 points wins.

Your first hand

First decide the trump suit. Starting to the dealer’s left, each player may order up the turned card, which makes its suit trump, or pass. When it is ordered up, the dealer picks it up and discards a card face down. If everyone passes, a second round lets players name any other suit as trump, or pass again. In our game, unless you turn it off in Settings, if the second round comes back to the dealer, the dealer must name a suit. Whoever makes trump may go alone and play without their partner, for a bigger score.

Then play five tricks. The player left of the dealer leads. Follow the suit led if you can. The highest trump wins a trick, and with no trump, the highest card of the suit led wins. Remember the bowers. The jack of trump is the right bower, the highest card in the game. The other jack of the same color is the left bower, second highest, and it counts as trump.

How a hand ends

The team that made trump scores 1 point for taking three or four tricks, and 2 points for all five. Going alone and taking all five is worth 4. A team that fails to take three tricks is euchred, and the other team scores 2 points. Then the deal passes to the left.

A short example

Hearts is the turned-up suit. You sit left of the dealer, so you lead first. You hold the jack of hearts, the jack of diamonds, the ace of hearts and two small cards. That is the right bower and the left bower, both trump, so you order it up. You lead the right bower and take the trick, then the left bower, then the ace. Your team has three tricks, enough to score a point.