About Euchre
Euchre is a trick-taking card game most commonly played with four players. Players join into partnerships of two players each, and the partners, sitting across the table from each other, work together to win a hand by taking a majority of the tricks played during that hand. The first partnership to earn ten points wins the game.
Euchre is played with a partial deck of standard playing cards. 24 cards are used: the 9, 10, J (Jack), Q (Queen), K (King), and A (Ace) of each suit. 2 through 8 are omitted.
The heirarchy of cards is generally standard; 9 is the lowest and A is the highest, with 10 J Q K in that order in between.
However, when trump is declared, the J in that suit becomes the highest possible card (the "right bower"), and the J in the same color but different suit becomes the second-highest possible card, or the "left bower". The other two Jacks are not special. For example, if spades is trump, the Jack of spades will be the right bower, and the Jack of clubs will be the left. These are commonly called simply the "right" and "left".
When a suit is named trump, any card of that suit outranks any card of a non-trump suit (Wikipedia).
To determine the first deal, many players use a first Jack deals or first black Jack deals rule. Using the euchre deck, one player will distribute the cards, one at a time, face up in front of each player. The player dealt the first (black) jack becomes the dealer for the first hand. In subsequent hands, the deal is rotated clockwise. Out of courtesy, the dealer should offer a cut to the player on his right after shuffling and immediately before dealing.
Each player is dealt five cards in clockwise order, in groups of two or three cards each. The dealer may alternate, first giving two cards to the player to his left, three cards to his partner, two cards to the player on his right and three cards to himself. The dealer then repeats, this time giving three cards to the player on his left, two cards to his partner and so on, to give each player the requisite five cards. This method of dealing is the most common, although any sequence is legal as long as the dealer goes around the table twice (Wikipedia).
The remaining four cards are most commonly called the kitty, but are also sometimes referred to as the kit, the widow, the blind, the dead hand, the grave, buried, or the shit pile. The kitty is placed face down in the center of the table, and the top card is turned face up.
After the top card of the kitty is turned face up, "bidding" begins. Bidding is a term used to express the process of calling trump for a hand.
The player to the left of the dealer (P1) gets the chance to call as trump the suit of the face-up card (called ordering it up). If he wants the suit as trump, he will tell the dealer to "pick it up", which the dealer will then do, discarding one card from his hand into the kitty so that he has five cards once again. However, if P1 decides he does not like that suit, he can say "pass" or knock twice on the table to pass. This opportunity is given to each player in turn (in the clockwise direction), until someone calls the suit as trump. If it reaches the dealer and he also wishes to pass, he will turn over the top card and move the kitty to the side.
If no one orders up the top card, each player is given the opportunity in turn to call a different suit as trump. If no trump is selected, it is a misdeal, and the deal is passed clockwise unless it was agreed upon to play stick the dealer, an option that involves forcing the dealer to choose a trump.
A caller with exceptionally good cards can go alone, or take a loner hand, in which case he or she seeks to win all five tricks without a partner. The partner of a caller in a 'go alone' hand does not play, and if all five tricks are won by the caller the winning team scores four points. If only three or four of the tricks are taken while going alone, then only one point is scored. If set while playing alone, the opposing team still only receives two points (Wikipedia).
The player who calls trump is known as the "maker".
Regardless of who called trump, the player to the dealer's left begins play by leading a card. In some variations, if any player is going alone, the player to that person's left will lead.
Play continues in clockwise order; each player must follow suit if they have a card of the suit led. The left bower is considered a member of the trump suit and thus not a member of its native suit.
The player who plays the highest trump wins the trick. If no trump were played, the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. Players who play neither the suit led nor trump cannot win the trick. The player that won the trick collects the played cards from the table and then leads the next trick.
After all five tricks have been played, the hand is scored. The player to the left of the previous dealer then deals the next hand, and the deal moves clockwise around the table until one partnership scores 10 points and wins the game (Wikipedia).
In each hand, the partnership that takes three or more tricks wins the hand. If the partnership that called trump for the hand wins three or four tricks, it receives one point, regardless of whether the maker was going alone. If it wins all five tricks, this is called sweeping and two points are awarded, or four if the maker was going alone. If the defending partnership wins three or more tricks, however, the making partnership has been set (or euchred), and two points are awarded to the defenders (even if they win five tricks), regardless of whether the maker was going alone.
The first team to score 10 (sometimes 5, 7, 11, or 15) points wins the game (sometimes called a round). While score can be kept by using a tally sheet, most euchre players traditionally use the pair of 5 cards for one member of each partnership to keep score. In Western New York and parts of Ohio, it is traditional to use 2 and 3 cards, crossing them to show scores higher than 5. Some euchre players, especially in Indiana and Ohio, use a 6 and a 4. In all cases, one card is used to cover the other so as to expose the number of pips corresponding to the team's score (Wikipedia).