Rules

How to play Euchre

Updated October 2026 · 4 players · About 30 minutes

Euchre is a fast card game for four people in two teams. It uses only 24 cards and is played to ten points. The whole game turns on one strange rule about jacks.

What you need

You need four players in two teams of two, with partners sitting across from each other. Take a standard deck and keep only the 9, 10, jack, queen, king and ace of each suit. That makes 24 cards. Put the rest away.

You also need a way to keep score up to ten. Paper works. So do two spare cards for each team, taken from the cards you put away. A 4 and a 6 are a common pair: they have ten big suit symbols between them. Put the 6 face up and cover it with the 4 face down, so no symbols show: that is 0 points. For each point, move the 4 to uncover one more symbol on the 6 (swing it open around one corner, like opening a fan, to show them one at a time). Once all six symbols on the 6 show, turn the 4 face up and lay it over the 6 for the next points. The symbols showing on both cards add up to the score, so 4 on the 4 and 3 on the 6 is 7, and at 10 all ten symbols show.

The deal

Any fair method can pick the first dealer. A common one for Euchre is to deal cards face up around the table until someone gets the jack of spades or the jack of clubs. That player deals first. After each deal, the job of dealer passes to the left. Play always moves clockwise.

1. Deal five cards to each player, in small packets of two and three rather than one at a time. For example, give each player two cards, then three.
2. Put the four leftover cards face down. Turn the top one face up. This is the face-up card, and its suit is offered as the strongest suit. The other three stay face down, out of play.

If a card is turned face up by mistake while the cards are being dealt, or if anyone ends up with too many or too few cards, the same dealer shuffles and deals again. Nobody loses points. Some tables pass the deal to the next player instead. Count your cards when you pick them up, so a mistake is caught before play starts.

Picking the strongest suit

Now the players pick the strongest suit for this deal, called trump. Any trump card beats any card of another suit. Even a trump 9 beats an ace of another suit.

First go-around. The player to the dealer's left goes first, and the dealer goes last. On your turn, say "pass" or "order it up". To order it up is to accept the face-up card's suit as trump. If you pass, the choice moves to the next player.

If someone orders it up, the dealer picks up the face-up card. The dealer then puts one card from their hand face down, out of play, before the first card is played. The dealer is the only player who ever holds six cards, and only for a moment.

Second go-around. If all four players pass, the face-up card is turned face down and stays out of play. The dealer does not pick it up. Each player in turn, in the same order, may now name any other suit as trump, or pass again. You cannot name the suit that was just turned down. Naming the other suit of the same color as the turned-down card is often called "next".

If everyone passes twice, nobody scores. The standard rule is to gather up the cards, and the next player to the left shuffles and deals. Many groups instead play stick the dealer (also called screw the dealer). In that version, the dealer may not pass in the second go-around and must name a suit other than the one turned down. Agree which before you start.

The player who orders it up, or names a suit, picks trump for their team. That team must win at least 3 of the 5 rounds.

Going alone

A player who picks the strongest suit may say they are going alone. Their partner puts their cards face down and sits out the rest of the deal. The lone player plays against both players on the other team, so each round has three cards.

Going alone earns extra points only if the lone player wins all 5 rounds: 4 points instead of 2. Winning 3 or 4 rounds alone still scores just 1 point. If the lone player is euchred, the other team scores 2 points, as usual. Say "alone" when you pick trump. Once play starts, it is too late.

If the dealer's partner is the one going alone, the dealer is the partner who sits out and puts their cards face down. In Britain, Canada and Australia, a dealer's partner who orders it up must go alone. In the United States, they may play with the dealer as usual.

The bowers — the rule that makes Euchre

Once the strongest suit (trump) is picked, two jacks change their rank. They are called bowers.

• The right bower is the jack of the trump suit. It is the highest card in the game.
• The left bower is the jack of the other suit of the same color. It is the second-highest card. It stops being part of its printed suit and counts as a trump card instead.

The other suits rank as usual: ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9. The one exception is the suit that lost its jack to the left bower. It has only five cards: ace, king, queen, 10, 9.

Playing the five rounds

The player to the dealer's left plays first and puts any card face up. Each player to the left then puts down one card. Those cards make one round. If the first player is sitting out because their partner is going alone, the next player clockwise plays first.

The first card put down is the starting card, and its suit is the starting suit. You must play a card of the starting suit if you have one. If you have none, you may play any card, including a trump card. Remember that the left bower counts as a trump card, not as its printed suit.

The highest trump card wins the round. If nobody played a trump card, the highest card of the starting suit wins. A card of any other suit cannot win. The winner collects the cards and plays first in the next round. After five rounds, the deal is over.

If someone plays the wrong suit

Sometimes a player puts down a card of another suit when they had a card of the starting suit. Anyone may point this out until the cards for the next deal have been dealt. After that, it is too late. To check, look at the cards that player still holds, and at the rounds already played.

The standard rule: the deal ends right there and is not scored the usual way. The other team (the team that did not make the mistake) scores 2 points instead, or 4 if one of its players was going alone. If the mistake is found after the deal was already scored, take that score back first. Some groups instead take 2 points off the score of the team that made the mistake, or 4 if the other team's player was going alone. Agree which before you start.

Scoring

After the fifth round, count the rounds each team won. Then score points like this:

Some tables give the other team 4 points, not 2, when a player going alone is euchred. Agree beforehand; the standard is 2.

How the game ends

Keep playing deals. The first team to reach ten points or more wins. You do not have to land on ten exactly: a team on 9 points that scores 2 reaches 11, and wins.

Practice the first Euchre decision

Euchre gives you one decision before anything else happens, and getting it wrong is expensive: order it up with a hand that cannot win three of the five rounds and the other side scores two points. The practice page shows you a hand and the face-up card, and tells you how often your side managed it when our computer players played the hand out.

Three things beginners get wrong

Forgetting the left bower has changed suit

This is the most common mistake. It often ends in playing the wrong suit by accident (see If someone plays the wrong suit). If hearts are trump, the jack of diamonds is a heart, not a diamond. Say the trump suit out loud before the first card of every deal.

Ordering it up when the dealer is on the other team

When you order it up, the dealer picks up the face-up card. If the dealer is on the other team, you have just given them one more trump card. If that card is a jack, it is the right bower, the best card in the game.

Hoping for three rounds instead of counting on them

Picking trump is a promise to win at least 3 rounds. Being euchred twice gives the other team 4 of the 10 points it needs. But winning 3 or 4 rounds earns you only 1 point. Picture playing your hand again and again, with different cards for the other players each time. Order it up only if your team would win at least 3 rounds more than 2 times out of every 3. That line leaves out the 2 points for winning all five rounds and what the other players might do after a pass, so it is a rough guide. The practice game uses this same test.

A rough guide: count the cards in your hand that would be trump if you ordered it up. They are the cards of the face-up card's suit, plus the left bower if you hold it. The strongest suit has 7 cards in all: both bowers, the ace, king, queen, 10 and 9. If you hold 4 or 5 of them, few are left to beat you, so order it up. With 3 or fewer, ordering it up is risky unless your cards are very strong. Remember that the three rounds come from the two of you together, not from your five cards alone. The practice page gives a simple, tested way to count.

Questions people ask

Can I start a round with a trump card?

Yes, at any time. Some games make you wait until a trump card has been played, but Euchre does not. The right bower is often the best first card for the team that picked trump.

What do people mean by "next"?

In the second go-around, "next" means naming the other suit of the same color as the card turned down. If a heart was turned down, "next" is diamonds. Naming a suit of the opposite color instead is often called "reverse next". Some players call those two suits "green". That is only slang: no suit is really green.

Is Euchre played to a different number anywhere else?

North America usually plays to 10, which is what this page uses throughout. Britain often plays to 11, with a joker added as an extra top trump card called the Benny. See Common variations below.

Why is the deck only 24 cards?

Nobody is sure. The earliest written rules, from 1844, used 32 cards: the 7s through the aces. Today the 24-card deck is the usual one in North America, and some tables still play with 32 cards. Euchre is thought to come from Jucker, an old card game from Alsace, a region on the French-German border, but no full rules of Jucker survive.

Common variations

• Stick the dealer — see Picking the strongest suit above.
• Farmer's hand — a player whose five cards are all 9s and 10s may, before anyone says "pass" or "order it up", show them and swap three of them for the three unseen cards under the face-up card. The swap is called going under. Some tables are looser and allow it with any three cards that are 9s or 10s. Some tables allow a new deal instead.
• Playing to 15 instead of 10, for a longer game. A 4 and a 6 only reach 10, so keep score on paper.
• A 32-card game — add the 7s and 8s back in. They are the lowest cards in each suit, below the 9, so every suit has more weak cards. You still deal five cards each. Twelve cards are left over: the top one is turned face up, and the other eleven stay face down, out of play.
• British Euchre — played to 11 points, and usually with a joker added to the deck as the Benny: an extra top trump card that beats even the right bower. With the joker there are 25 cards, so five are left over: the top one is turned face up, and the other four stay face down. British tables usually keep score with a spare 5 and 6 instead of the 4 and 6: they have eleven suit symbols between them, not ten.
• Who starts when someone goes alone — some tables, including British ones, have the player to the lone player's left start the first round, instead of the player to the dealer's left.

None of these is standard. Settle them before the first deal, not in the middle of an argument.

By most accounts, the joker itself was first made for Euchre in the mid-1800s, to be the top trump card. Other games adopted it later.

Euchre only needs 24 cards, so an old deck works well. See our deck picks if it is time for a fresh one, or the cards made for Euchre further up this page.