Euchre
Four players in partnerships. Five tricks, and only three of them matter.
At a glance
24 cards — nine through ace. Five tricks a hand.
One side names trump and must take three of the five. The other side tries to stop them.
Three or four tricks: 1. All five: 2, or 4 alone. Stopped below three — euchred: 2 to the other side.
First partnership to the target. Ten is the usual game.
How Euchre scoring works
One side names trump. Doing so is a promise to take three of the five tricks — that side are the makers, and the other two are simply trying to stop them.
Make it with three or four tricks and you score 1 point. Take all five — a march — and you score 2. Fail to take three and you have been euchred: the other side scores 2, which is why calling on a weak hand is the most expensive mistake in the game.
Points belong to the partnership, not the person. Games usually run to ten.
Going alone
A caller may go alone: their partner lays their cards down and takes no part in the hand. One player against two, for all five tricks.
Take all five alone and it is worth 4 points — nearly half a game in one hand. Take three or four and it scores the ordinary 1; get euchred and the defenders still take 2, so the risk is real and entirely yours.
It is the only decision in Euchre worth a multiplier, which is why it is recorded as part of the call rather than remembered separately.
Why five tricks and not thirteen
Euchre is played with 24 cards — nine through ace in each suit — so a hand is five tricks and takes a couple of minutes. That is the appeal: a game to ten is a handful of quick hands, and the swing from a single euchre is large enough that nobody is ever safely ahead.
The right bower and left bower — the jack of trump and the jack of the same colour — are the two highest cards, which is the rule most new players get wrong and the reason a hand can look stronger than it is.
Common disputes, settled
Do the defenders score for making trump difficult? Only by euchring them. There is no score for holding the makers to three.
What if the caller's partner takes a trick while they are alone? They cannot — they are out of the hand entirely. Their tricks are zero.
Is a march alone always four? At most tables, yes. Some score it 2 like an ordinary march; agree before you start, or switch off "going alone" and the question disappears.
Do points ever go negative? No. A euchre gives points to the other side rather than taking any away.
Keeping score without the arithmetic
Euchre is traditionally scored with two spare cards, which works right up until somebody forgets whether the six is showing. Casetta Cards keeps the running total for both partnerships, applies the alone bonus, and knows who called — free, in a browser, nothing to install.
Variations
All off unless you turn them on when starting a game.
7 points — Short. Good when you only have one round in you.
11 points — Longer, and a single euchre matters less.