How to play Euchre

Euchre is a fast card game played with 4 players, split into 2 teams of 2. Teammates sit across from each other.

The game uses only the 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace from each suit.

Each round, one suit becomes trump, which means cards from that suit are stronger than the others. The goal is for your team to win as many tricks as possible.

A trick is one card played by each player. The highest card of the suit led wins, unless someone plays trump. Trump cards beat all non-trump cards.

The strongest cards are:

1. Right Bower — Jack of trump suit
2. Left Bower — Jack of the same color as trump
3. Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9 of trump
4. Then normal suit ranking: Ace high down to 9

Each hand has 5 tricks. The team that chooses trump needs to win at least 3 tricks.

Scoring is simple:

• Win 3 or 4 tricks: score 1 point
• Win all 5 tricks: score 2 points
• Go alone and win all 5: score 4 points
• Choose trump but lose: the other team scores 2 points — this is called getting euchred

The first team to reach the target score, usually 10 points, wins the game.